Facing one another down from their opposing green benches, it didn’t require any unique insight to pinpoint what Sir Keir Starmer would lead his weekly grilling of Rishi Sunak on.
With headlines dominated by Tory mega-donor Frank Hester’s racist abuse of former Labour MP Diane Abbott, “is he proud”, Starmer asked, “to be bankrolled” by him?
“Two weeks ago, the Prime Minister invited himself into everyone’s living room (ed note – perish the thought) at six o’clock on a Friday evening,” Starmer posited.
He chose to anoint himself as the great healer and pose as some kind of unifier.
Sir Keir Starmer
Perhaps Sunak, ever the son of a pharmacist, was hoping the pernicious questions of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, (sorry, community tensions), could be dealt with via a Covid-style press conference, with a dose of nanny state-ish finger wagging doled out.
Prescribe a few charts [‘next slide please’], roll out the independent advisor on anti-Muslim hatred… maybe after appointing one first, and Boris- sorry, Bob’s your uncle.
But with rumours swirling of old BoJo himself making a return to the campaign trail, MPs dropping resignation announcements like flies, and the party embroiled in (another) racism row, now just hours before Conservative smoother-in-chief Michael Gove prepares to unveil a fresh definition of extremism, there weren’t many signs Sunak’s medicine was working.
“How low would he have to sink, what racist, woman-hating threat of violence would he have to make,” Starmer needled, before Sunak found the “courage” to give back Hester’s £10m?
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But the Prime Minister’s vain attempt to insist his top donor’s “remorse should be accepted” fell rather flat when SNP leader Stephen Flynn branded it “complete rubbish”.
Hester, who said Abbott should be shot, had said sorry for being rude, he pointed out. But “he wasn’t rude: he was racist, he was odious, and he was downright bloody dangerous.”
Not that anyone thought to ask Abbott – who, incidentally, has made a complaint to the Met Police – herself for her thoughts, despite her indicating multiple times.
We were also spared the insights of fresh Reform UK convert – and former Conservative Party deputy chairman – Lee Anderson.
Perched next to the (re)-(re)-(re)-elected George Galloway, the gruesome twosome weren’t unlike a pair of schoolboys kicked out of the classroom, making faces outside the window.
We can only hope the fray was the last dominated by a racism row before the election. But either way, its caustic flavour is surely only an appetiser ahead of the brutal campaign to come.
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