WESTMINISTER (Labour Buzz) - In the last PMQs before the summer break, we saw two leaders with very different attitudes to Government. For Starmer, the job of opposition during this outbreak is to offer support where possible, to work with the government, but to point out where things are going wrong. Johnson, meanwhile, continues to see politics in the way he always has: a game where failure only really matters if you can’t avoid the blame.
This difference was on display throughout the session. Starmer might have been expected to score a few cheap points by going over the Government’s confusion over face masks; instead, he asked specific questions about the Government’s future handling of the Pandemic. For a competent Prime Minister with a clear idea about his own strategy, they shouldn’t have been too difficult to answer, but of course, this is Boris Johnson we’re dealing with. To him, they were like trying to scale Everest.
Warnings of the future
Nowhere was this clearer than when questions swung around to a recent report commissioned by the Government’s chief scientific advisor Patrick Vallance. It warned of a reasonable worst-case scenario in which 120,000 people could die if the Government didn’t take action now. Starmer’s question was simple: would the Prime Minister commit to implementing its recommendations?
Instead, Johnson chose to go for bluster. He talked about ‘record’ investment into the NHS ignoring the fact that the money pledged to the NHS so far represents an increase of just 3% per year rather than the 6% seen under the last Labour Government. However, as for how he would avoid 120,000 more deaths he had nothing.
Starmer gave him one more chance. The report gave dire warnings about the future, but it also tells Johnson what he can do to avoid it. All he had to do was read the report, which, given his answers, Starmer felt compelled to ask if he had.
The short answer to that was no. To laughter from the chamber, Johnson tried to claim he was aware of the report, without actually claiming to have read it.
Saving jobs
Starmer also pulled us back to the Government’s announcement last week of a support package worth billions of pounds. While there was much in this to be welcomed, it still lacked sector-specific support for some of the most badly affected people and industries. He highlighted the aviation industry which was losing thousands of jobs and British Airways which was rehiring those people it hadn’t made redundant on worse pay and conditions.
He asked the Prime Minister to produce some specific support for badly affected industries and ensure that those businesses which behaved in the way British Airways had would face repercussions in the form of slot allocation.
Johnson was in no mood to offer any such reassurances. He claimed it was unrealistic to save every job and defended British Airways for its actions which, he argues, came in the face of a highly challenging business environment.
Message to the bereaved
The low point in the season came after Starmer said he would be meeting the COVID 19 Bereaved Families for Justice Group this afternoon. He quoted them as saying:
“We won’t let the deaths of our loved ones be in vain and we won’t allow the government to allow the second wave of deaths without learning from their mistakes.”
What did Johnson have to say to them? Starmer asked.
Johnson, as it turned out, had absolutely nothing to say to them. Instead, he chose to unleash an ill-timed pre-prepared joke. He said Starmer should return to ‘his previous brief’ of supporting the Government. “He’s had more briefs than Calvin Klein,” he sniggered.
Who won?
Starmer has always tried to be constructive in these sessions. To the frustration of many in his own party, he has adopted a constructive approach offering support where he can but pulling the Government upon its failings.
As he has said before he ‘goes out of his way to be supportive, but boy does this Government make it tough’.
Johnson is ill-equipped to deal with someone who engages in this way. Instead, his strategy has been to try and use it against him. If Starmer, expresses support for a policy one day, he can’t then turn around and criticise it another, if the government fails to deliver it properly. Equally, if his shadow chancellor can express support for some measures in Rishi Sunak’s financial statement, Starmer should not be allowed to point out glaring omissions.
What Starmer sees as constructive opposition, Johnson tries to paint as indecision and in some quarters such a cynical approach may gain traction. At some point, Starmer may change track. So far he has been working on the assumption that he has been dealing with a Prime Minister whose priority is to tackle the disease.
However, he’s beginning to realise that what he has is a charlatan whose only real interests are his own. Most of the rest of the country reached that conclusion sometime now. As Starmer catches up, we may see something very different when the hostilities resume after the break.
(Written by Tom Cropper, Edited by Klaudia Fior)