The leader of the Conservative Party Kemi Badenoch started Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) on Wednesday by asking Sir Keir Starmer a question over his leadership.
Badenoch said that when Starmer was the leader of the opposition he insisted, “I never turn on my staff when they make mistakes.”
She asked, “What changed?
Starmer told MPs in the House of Commons, “I’ve accepted responsibility and apologised for the mistakes that I made.
Morgan McSweeney helped me change our party and helped me win a landslide election victory which delivered for them the smallest Tory party in over 100 years.
“And what’s her great achievement? To make it even smaller.”
Badenoch then asked Starmer that last week during PMQs he had confidence in his chief of staff, McSweeney, “what has changed?”
Starmer failed to answer the simple question and instead decided to focus on Tory defections, he said, “In January, she said she had full confidence, 100% confidence she said, there’d be no more defections from her party.
Starmer smugly said, “48 hours later, the shadow foreign minister defected. Eight days after that, the former home secretary defected.
“The only question now is who’s next? She needs to wake up. Her party is dying.”
The Tory leader told MPs that scandal surrounding Peter Mandelson and the Jeffrey Epstein files is “not an isolated incident.”
She asked, why did Starmer announce a peerage for his former director of communications, Mathew Doyle a few weeks ago as he had previously campaigned for a Labour councillor who was charged with holding indecent images of young children.
She asked, “Despite the prime minister knowing this, he gave Doyle a job for life in the House of Lords anyway. Why?”
Starmer replied, “Matthew Doyle did not give a full account of his actions.
“On Monday, I promised my party and my country that there will be change. And yesterday, I removed the whip from Matthew Doyle.”
Badenoch said, “Nobody buys it – not even the Labour women, because they know he always puts the Downing Street Boys Club first.
“And how dare he criticise us. We weren’t the ones stuffing the government with hypocrites and paedophile apologists.”
She accused Starmer of not being able to “build a team” and told MPs in the House that the Prime Minister “has no plan.”
Liberal Democrats leader Sir Ed Davey then stood up to ask his two questions, he raised issued of Mandelson and Doyle.
Sir Ed said, “To appoint one paedophile supporter cannot be excused as misfortune. To appoint two shows a catastrophic lack of judgement.”
Sir Ed then quoted Starmer, he said a PM refusing to not take responsibility means that “progress is not possible because politics does not work”.
Does he still agree with himself, and does he share my fear that is exactly what is happening now?
Starmer now looking less smug said, Millions of people have been let down for years and years and years. One of the reasons was austerity, which his party supported.
“He should take accountability and take responsibility for what he has inflicted on this country.”
Sir Ed issued a stinging reply to Starmer, “I think I touched a raw nerve.”
The Westminster leader for the SNP Stephen Flynn said, “He’s essentially rolled the same pitch in relation to Matthew Doyle as he did with Peter Mandelson, that they weren’t clear with him.
“He appears to be the most gullible former director of public prosecutions in history.”
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