How will Liz Truss’s arrival change Prime Minister’s Questions?

The tone was very different at the new prime minister’s first outing, writes John Rentoul

Keir Starmer and Liz Truss went head to head for the first time (UK Parliament/EPA)

Watching the first exchange between Liz Truss and Keir Starmer from the press gallery, I felt an unfamiliar sensation. The Labour leader asked a simple, clear question, to which everyone in the Commons, and everyone else watching outside, wanted to know the answer. And the prime minister answered it. Was she really against windfall taxes? Yes I am, she said.

I didn’t agree with her answer, and I thought it was unwise, but it wasn’t the kind of answer that Boris Johnson would have given. Not just because he reluctantly agreed to impose a windfall tax on the oil and gas companies, but because he was the lord of chaos at Prime Minister’s Questions.

He would ignore Starmer’s question, or twist it, or launch a gratuitous attack, or ask Starmer a question, which always provoked Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker. He was unpredictable, often entertaining, sometimes unclear or irrelevant, and yet he managed to make Starmer seem petty, bureaucratic or boring.

What a surprising change to witness, instead, a substantive political debate, as Starmer asked six questions and Truss answered them, revealing a clear ideological divide across the floor of the House. Starmer thinks that the voters will demand higher taxes on the companies making huge unexpected profits out of the world’s misery. Truss thinks that the voters will, in the end, prefer a government that sets its face against tax rises of any kind.

She was clear and came across well, compared with some of her hesitant performances in the leadership election campaign. Starmer was more relaxed and asked shorter, sharper questions than he often did against Johnson, although he is still hampered by his need to read them out from his notes.

Neither aspired to the heights of great political theatre of ages past – Tony Blair vs William Hague probably being the best pairing – but they both had some good lines. Starmer had some effective asides, mentioning stroke victims who have to wait an hour for an ambulance and accusing Truss of “reheating George Osborne”.

She held the attention of MPs, and not just, I think, because it was her first outing. She was also more spontaneous and humorous than expected. Replying to Theresa May, as they congratulated each other on the Conservative Party’s record of three female prime ministers, Truss said it was extraordinary that Labour couldn’t even find one, “or indeed a leader who does not come from north London”.

Of the recent match-ups across the despatch boxes, it could be that Truss vs Starmer will be the most straightforward, clear and evenly matched.