Keir Starmer hasn’t delivered a knock-out blow, but the Tories are down

He was careful not to be too funny or too brutal, because he knows that every day Truss remains in office is worth another few votes at the next election, writes John Rentoul

Her responses weren’t exactly robotic, because they were delivered with some animation (PRU/AFP via Getty Images)

It was torture for her from the start. The first question came from Justin Madders, a shadow junior minister, who asked why the chancellor lost his job but she kept hers. She started her answer: “I have been very clear…” But she was drowned out by a wave of ridicule from the opposition.

Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker, then called Laurence Robertson, a Conservative MP, instead of Sajid Javid, the former chancellor whose name was on the order paper. It wasn’t until after Prime Minister’s Questions was over that we learned that Liz Truss had suspended Jason Stein, her adviser, just before the session, in return for Javid not asking a question about him. Javid blames Stein for an anonymous briefing that Truss thought he was incompetent.

Having swerved that section of sky falling on her head, she then had to endure six social media clips, loosely in the form of questions, from Keir Starmer, in which he essentially asked six times what was the point of her.

He was careful not to be too funny or too brutal, because he knows that every day she remains in office is worth another few votes at the next election. He asked: “How can she be held to account when she is not in charge?” There was an edge to his throwing her saying sorry to the British people back in her face: “What does she think people will say? ‘That’s all right, I don’t mind financial ruin; at least she has apologised.’” But it was a less than historic parliamentary assault.

Still she wobbled. Her responses weren’t exactly robotic, because they were delivered with some animation. But they were off the point. She said the government would “crack down on militant unions” and accused Starmer of “doing nothing” in his two and a half years as leader of the opposition. She invited further shrieks of laughter when she said: “I do think there has to be some reflection of economic reality from the party opposite.” From a prime minister who has melted down the financial markets by trying to defy economic reality that betrayed a startling lack of self-knowledge.

She then quoted Peter Mandelson’s defiant 2001 re-election speech as MP for Hartlepool: “I’m a fighter not a quitter.” The noise of derision was such that the speaker intervened to calm the Commons, giving her a chance to further defend herself. She repeated, “I’m a fighter not a quitter,” as if she could manage only one thought at a time.

This was only her third Prime Minister’s Questions, and she handled it as if she had hardly spoken from the front bench before – despite having served at the cabinet table longer than any new Conservative prime minister since Alec Douglas-Home. She accused Stella Creasy, the pro-EU Labour MP, of failing to support the decision of the British people in the referendum: “I’m a democrat; I respect what the British people voted for.” She seemed unaware of the widespread feeling that she lacks a democratic mandate herself.

No Conservative MPs attacked her directly, but a queue of them demanded that she rescue their favoured policies from what Robert Largan, Tory MP for High Peak, yesterday called the “dumpster fire”. David Jones, the former Brexit minister, wanted her to stand firm in excluding the European Court of Justice from the Northern Ireland protocol. She was noncommittal. Andrew Mitchell, the former international development secretary, wanted her to restore the cut in foreign aid. She praised his record.

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The only MP who got what he wanted was Ian Blackford of the Scottish National Party, who forcefully condemned the prime minister for cutting the state pension only to be told that she and the chancellor were “fully committed” to the triple lock – uprating the pension in line with prices. Blackford wasn’t paying attention to her answer, and used his second question to denounce her for “throwing pensioners under the bus”, but the rest of the Commons was surprised to discover that Truss and Hunt had met this morning and agreed a U-turn on the original U-turn.

There was never any prospect that parliament would allow the prime minister, or the prime minister’s handler, to cut the state pension in real terms, so closing down the story which the chancellor himself started gets the government nowhere.

It is a similar story with fracking, on which Labour will further embarrass the government this evening. There never was any chance that fracking would happen anywhere in the country, so Truss gained nothing by pretending it could be part of her plan for growth.

Today’s session of Prime Minister’s Questions ought to have told Conservative MPs that they cannot go on like this. But still they sit on their hands.