Andrew Gimson’s PMQs sketch: Davey accuses Starmer of being soft on Trump

Sir Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Party, hopes Donald Trump will do for him what he has just done for Mark Carney.

Davey began by congratulating Carney and the Liberal Party of Canada on their election victory, achieved by defending Canada against Trump’s grotesque proposal to make it the 51st state of the United States.

The problem for Davey is that Trump, though the most boorish American President since Andrew Jackson, has not yet said anything nearly as insulting about the United Kingdom.

But Davey lives in hope. He warned that Trump “can’t be trusted” to stick to any trade deal – see his imposition of tariffs on Canada – so will Sir Keir Starmer submit any trade deal the British Government may do with the Americans to a vote in the House of Commons?

Davey did not explain why a vote in the Commons would make Trump any more trustworthy, but this was not really the point he wished to make.

He hopes, instead, to present himself as Britain’s defender against Trump, to whose every wish the feeble, gullible, unpatriotic Starmer gives in.

Starmer tried to present himself as the British version of Carney: “We will act obviously in the national interest.”

He naturally refused anything so subversive as a Commons vote: any trade deal will “go through the known procedures of this House”.

The Prime Minister is a great proceduralist. Loyal Labour backbenchers asked him to “confirm that this is just the start of Labour’s Plan for Change”, and he was happy to give that assurance.

He must, however, know that he is vulnerable to the charge of being soft on Trump.

Kemi Badenoch accused him, for the second week in a row, of being soft on Labour Councils which have refused to set up local inquiries into the child abuse scandal, for fear of having their own disgraceful role in covering up what was going on exposed.

Starmer accused her of having said nothing about this when she was in office, while as Director of Public Prosecutors he had “changed the entire approach to prosecutions” in this field.

“He’s not Director of Public Prosecutions any more,” Badenoch pointed out. “He is the Prime Minister.”

She wanted him to agree to a national inquiry. He observed that there has already been one, and became once more the great proceduralist, as devoted as Sir Humphrey in Yes Minister to getting his own way by standing up for the proper way of doing things: “The right thing to do is to implement the recommendations.”

“If I was standing where he is,” Badenoch said, “we would have had a national inquiry months ago.”

She sat down to cries of “more” from her own benches. One cannot watch every Conservative backbencher at once, but Sir Andrew Mitchell and Sir David Davis, who sit next to each other, were among those who joined in.

Nigel Farage, leader of Reform, pointed out that “10,000 young undocumented males have illegally crossed” the Channel this year, and said Starmer’s call to “smash the gangs” was “nothing more than an election slogan”.

Starmer, like other MPs in election mode because of tomorrow’s contests, accused Farage of having a “pro-Putin foreign policy” and also of recruiting Liz Truss.

These wounding allegations were greeted with laughter by Farage, who raised his hands to his face in mock embarrassment. For a moment or two one had the impression Starmer is more worried by him than by either Badenoch or Davey.