Andrew Gimson’s PMQs sketch: Badenoch hits Starmer below the belt

Is Sir Keir Starmer a man? According to Kemi Badenoch, “He doesn’t have the balls.”

Badenoch hit Starmer below the belt after calling on him to apologise to Rosie Duffield, who now sits as an Independent, having been driven out of the Labour Party last September for being on what was then the wrong side of the Trans debate.

Starmer naturally refused to apologise. To have done so would have caused uproar within the Labour Party. He could not, however, give this as his reason.

He tried piety: everyone including Trans people should be treated “with dignity and respect” and the subject must not become “a political football”.

He then took a hack at Rishi Sunak’s shins for having once made a Trans joke at the Despatch Box. “Who’s playing political football now?” Badenoch asked.

Starmer accused her of having lost control of her party, but his performance today made one wonder how firmly he is in charge of his.

Duffield was bobbing up and down, attempting to get in. The Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, did not call her. This seemed an extraordinary decision, given that Duffield’s name was being bandied about.

Hoyle once did something similar when Diane Abbott was trying to speak in a row which concerned herself.

The Prime Minister behaves as an astute lawyer would behave. He refuses to commit himself to any position which in his view might later on inhibit his freedom of manoeuvre.

Every PM sometimes has to do this, but Starmer does it so often he has started to look evasive. This was perhaps his most uncomfortable PMQs. His colours are never nailed to the mast, for fear his own crew might mutiny.

It was, incidentally, a rather good PMQs for Nigel Farage, the Leader of Reform. He did not speak, or even try to speak, but turned pink with pleasure and shook his head when Starmer asserted that according to Badenoch’s colleague Robert Jenrick, “Reform and the Tories are working together.”