The Who’s Roger Daltrey was told off by Commons speaker Lindsay Hoyle for applauding an attack on Keir Starmer in Prime Minister’s Questions.
The rock star was rebuked as he watched the weekly question time session from the viewing gallery in the House of Commons. The awkward moment came after Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s Westminster leader, hit out at the Prime Minister for
In a moment that triggered laughter from MPs, Mr Flynn implied Mr Starmer was scamming the public by breaking election promises. The politician acknowledged that this week was the BBC’s anti-scam awareness week, continuing: “Of course, the advice in that context is if you see a scam, you should report it.
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“So with that in mind, can the Prime Minister advise the House: Is he aware of anyone who’s promised to reduce energy bills only for them to increase, is he aware of anyone who promised to back business only to tax business and is he aware of anyone who promised to protect pensioners only to pick their pockets for their winter fuel allowance.”
Mr Starmer stood up to respond to Mr Flynn but Speaker Mr Hoyle interjected after members in the public gallery – including Daltrey – broke the rule of not applauding in the Commons. “Sorry, the gallery will not clap and not interrupt the proceedings,” he declared.
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The PM then rose again and mocked the SNP’s dire performance at the general election, which saw Mr Flynn’s party go from being the third largest party in Westminster to the fourth. It means Mr Flynn sits in a less superior seat in the Commons now.
Mr Starmer told him: “Well I’m very glad to see him in his seat in this House. I’m sure many of his colleagues in Scotland share that sentiment. What I can point to him is a government in Scotland that promised to take Scotland forward and took them backwards. So I can identify the first one is right there.”
Elsewhere during the tense PMQs session, Kemi Badenoch bizarrely told Mr Starmer to “resign”. Just four weeks after becoming Tory leader, Ms Badenoch suggested the PM should step aside to discover the Conservatives’ plans on tax and spending. She pointed to an online petition – signed by over 2 million people – calling for a general election, just five months after the country went to the polls.
But the PM hit back: “She talks about a petition, we had a massive petition on the 4th of July in this country. We spent years taking our party from a party of protest to a party of government, they are hurtling in the opposite direction.”