Andrew Gimson’s PMQs sketch: Starmer has started to resent criticism

An undertone of resentment has become audible in the Prime Minister’s voice. MPs come here week after week to criticise him!

The injustice of it has started to rile him. He went redder than usual in the face as he accused Kemi Badenoch of coming along every week “to carp from the sidelines”.

His face could end up being the reddest thing about him. Badenoch invited him to “admit that he was wrong to remove the Winter Fuel Payment from millions of pensioners”.

Starmer complained that “no other party in this House is prepared to say how they would put the finances straight”. He finds himself the lone defender of sound money,

The unfairness of this is all the greater when one considers that, as he announced at the start of PMQs, Britain has had “a huge win” in the “landmark” trade deal he has reached with India. Why did no one want to talk about that?

Badenoch chose instead to point out that Tony Blair has come out against the Government’s net zero policy. She has started to rile Starmer, and to patronise him.

Last week’s election results were very good for Reform, who sat, looking cheerful, their numbers in the House back up to five, though Richard Tice, their deputy leader, who was bobbing up and down, was not called.

The elections were very bad for both the Conservatives and Labour, but Badenoch remained buoyant while Starmer did not.

Sir Ed Davey, for the Liberal Democrats, pointed out that Starmer has said he wants to go “further and faster”, but on social care is going “slower and slower”.

Starmer replied in an aggrieved tone that Davey never says where the money is to come from. The Prime Minister feels he has been left alone with his troubles.

Davey urged him to “stand up for our country against Donald Trump”, and to warn the American President that “if he picks a fight with James Bond, Bridget Jones and Paddington Bear he will lose”.

A fascinating glimpse of the Lib Dem defence policy, a blend of fantasy and sentimentality. And isn’t James Bond now in American ownership?