PMQs: Badenoch gets back to basics
The final PMQs of the year was held against a backdrop of big problems for both of Britain's largest parties.
Final PMQs of the year today and it's safe to say that 2024 has been something of a whirlwind, what with the handing over of control to Labour in the Commons and the uncertainty surrounding the future of the Tories. Not to mention the rise of Reform and the Lib Dem.
Kemi Badenoch is attempting to stake a claim as a viable prime ministerial candidate, and to return credibility to her party. It will certainly be a challenge. Simultaneously, the change in mood surrounding the new government has been fairly rapid, an unusually fast deterioration for an administration only half a year old.
Today, the leader of the opposition was resolutely critical of Labour’s pension strategy, and she has been consistent on this. Badenoch claimed the Prime Minister and his cabinet have “played politics with the Waspi women,” and also cited Rachel Reeves’s cutting of winter fuel payments as part of the breakdown of trust among pensioners.
Keir Starmer was adamant that the government is “driving up eligibility for pension credit” and can now “commit to the triple lock,” as the economy has been “stabilised,” and thus the plan to increase the full state pension by £472 a year from April 2025 will be enough to protect older people. He also attacked Badenoch on a pledge, in the 2017 Conservative manifesto, to end the universal winter payments for pensioners.
Badenoch was equally critical of the Prime Minister’s judgement on the economy, saying: “I don’t know what world he’s living in, the economy is shrinking” and “inflation is going up and jobs are being lost because of his budget.”
Much of the rhetoric from the Prime Minister, though, has been unchanged since his party came to power in July. Starmer was a broken record today, as he spoke of the “tough choices,” he is being forced to make, given the £22 billion “black hole” left by the previous government to “put the finances back in order.”
It was not only the leader of the opposition who pressed Starmer on the Waspi women, but Mother of the House Dianne Abbott. She asked whether the Prime Minister “really understands how let down Waspi women feel.” This came after the government said they would not receive compensation, despite previously vowing to give them “justice.”
As we come to the end of year, both the largest parties are facing mounting problems, no less on how Reform UK could upset the political establishment even more in the years ahead. Badenoch should be getting back to basics: and grilling the PM on policy. In an albeit forgettable PMQ’s, there were signs that she is starting to pursue such an approach. For her own survival, and that of her party, it’s essential that she does more of this.