PMQs dwell: Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch set to go head-to-head
Kemi Badenoch will face Keir Starmer at PMQs following her shaky debut after becoming Tory leader.
Ms Badenoch sparked anger last week after making a misleading claim over defence spending in the Budget. She also attacked the PM for giving “scripted” answers – but was mocked for reading from a script herself.
Ms Badenoch claimed that last month’s Budget “did not even mention defence”. As fact checking charity Full Fact pointed out, this was not correct – Rachel Reeves made several references to it, along with new funds.
Mr Starmer shot back during the exchange: “The one thing I learned as leader of the opposition it is a good idea to listen to what the Government is actually saying. I think she said defence wasn’t mentioned in the Budget.
“It was seven days ago and it is absolutely clear and central to the Budget.”
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Kemi Badenoch less popular than last four Tory leaders when they arrived, poll shows
Kemi Badenoch is less popular than Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak, Theresa May and Boris Johnson were when they took office, polling shows.
According to YouGov 21% of voters have a favourable opinion of her. This is lower than Mrs May (48%), Mr Sunak (34%), Mr Johnson (33%) and even Ms Truss (26%) when they became Tory leader.
The poll shows 41% have an unfavourable opinion of her – which is lower than all but Mrs May.
Keir Starmer has been busy on the world stage
Keir Starmer has been pushing Western allies to step up support to put Ukraine in the “strongest position” possible before Donald Trump takes office.
The return of Mr Trump to the White House means there is uncertainty over the level of US support for Kyiv from January when the president-elect takes office.
The PM said he had been having discussions with other leaders about how to shore up support for Volodymyr Zelensky’s forces. Mr Starmer held talks with France’s Emmanuel Macron on Monday and is reported to be pushing for outgoing US President Joe Biden to release £15.6 billion in funds for Ukraine before he leaves office.
The Prime Minister hopes to talk face-to-face with the president at the G20 summit next week, The Daily Telegraph reported. The Biden White House could also be pushed to give permission for Ukraine to use UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles to strike targets within Russia.
How was Kemi Badenoch’s first PMQs?
Ms Badenoch used her first PMQs session to launch a misleading attack on the Government over defence spending.
The new Tory leader, who took charge of the warring party days earlier, told MPs there was nothing in the new Budget on defence spending. In fact Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced an additional £2.9billion for the Ministry of Defence and said the Government would “set a path” to spending 2.5% of GDP on defending the country.
Ms Badenoch told the Commons: “His Chancellor’s Budget did not even mention defence. The Chancellor’s budget last week was a copy and paste of Bidenomics. It turns out that a high spending, high borrowing, high inflation approach is less popular than she may have thought.”
The PM shot back: “The one thing I learned as leader of the opposition it is a good idea to listen to what the Government is actually saying. I think she said defence wasn’t mentioned in the Budget.
“It was seven days ago and it is absolutely clear and central to the Budget.” He said that the Government is committed to bringing defence spending to 2.5% – and pointed out that the last time this was achieved was under the last Labour government.
