PMQS: Boris tries and fails to bat off a well-prepared Starmer

You can probably guess what the next PMQs will be like, and the one after that, because every session follows the same two-step sequence. One, Keir Starmer tries to make the Boris Johnson look stupid by asking a detailed question. And two, he attempts to distance himself from his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, by taking precisely the opposite position on any given topic. Today’s session, the first since the summer recess, was no different.

The first task was easily accomplished this afternoon, with the Prime Minister flatly repeating worn-out attack lines from several months ago and avoiding answering questions about the pandemic response. Asked about when he knew there was a problem with the Ofqual exams algorithm, Johnson responded by requesting that Starmer congratulate students on their grades. Asked again about the algorithm, he insisted that “the teachers of this country are overwhelmingly proving [Starmer] wrong, because they are going back to school.” It was a depressing display of obfuscation. Job done.

Next, Starmer was onto his most dangerous opponents – those on the left of his own party. Having anticipated that Johnson would make a reference to Corbyn’s questionable history with the IRA, Starmer pounced: “Mr Speaker, before I go on. The Prime Minister said something about the IRA, and I want him to take it back. I worked in Northern Ireland for five years, with the police service of Northern Ireland, bringing peace. I prosecuted serious terrorists for five years. I ask the Prime Minister to have the decency to withdraw that comment!”

A blatantly pre-prepared line, but delivered with extraordinary passion. Camden’s acting teachers really are impressive. Johnson was flustered. “I listened to the protestations of the right honourable gentleman. I think they would have been more in order throughout the long years in which he supported a leader of the Labour–” he said before being cut off by the Speaker.

What he was trying to say – that Starmer tolerated Corbyn’s IRA history while in the shadow cabinet – is true, but makes for a ponderous election attack line.

In any case, Johnson’s sanctimony on the IRA issue also leaves him in a tricky spot. What he believes to be a killer rhetorical blow could be just as easily thrown back at him. He has just given a peerage to Claire Fox, who has been criticised for her past membership of the Revolutionary Communist Party, an organisation which defended the IRA’s Warrington bombings in 1993. A spokesman for the Brexit Party last year said that Fox “does not hold those views now”.

Yet Speaker Lindsay Hoyle, whose father was the Labour MP for Warrington, is said to be particularly sensitive about the Fox appointment. Perhaps that’s why he cut Johnson off mid-sentence – just as he was about to throw stones in a very precarious glass house.

To date, the rally-around-the-flag effect in national polling has allowed Johnson to maintain the support of his backbenchers despite his lacklustre parliamentary performances. The public doesn’t want to see its leader attacked at times of crisis. But that sentiment won’t last forever, and when it fades the Prime Minister will soon be judged more and more on the basis of his performances at PMQs.

His bluster, which was considered harmless entertainment by some voters when the economy was doing well, now appears clumsy and amateurish. Meanwhile, the Leader of the Opposition continues to revive his party, one rehearsed cry of indignation at a time.