Kemi Badenoch made a fresh gaffe during her first PMQs as the new Tory leader today – and was reminded of all the other ones she has made recently, too.
The North West Essex MP was elected to lead the opposition on Saturday, meaning she gets to hold the government to account by asking Keir Starmer multiple questions every week in the House in a heated debate.
So Badenoch immediately got stuck in with criticising the government’s policies, saying: “His chancellor’s Budget did not even mention the defence.”
But Labour announced plans to “set a path” to reach 2.5% of GDP spending on defence just last week, in the Budget.
However, the prime minister hit back: “The one thing I learnt as leader of the opposition is that it’s a good idea to listen to what the government is actually saying – I think she just said the defence was not mentioned in the Budget.
“It was absolutely clear and central to the Budget!”
Plenty of backbenchers ended up using their questions to give Badenoch a hard time, too.
Labour MP Jacob Collier noted that hardworking families in the UK often struggle finances and raising their children.
He added: “When they hear the leader of the party opposite say maternity pay has gone too far, they are terrified about what this means for them.”
This gave Starmer an open goal. He said he would ease the worry felt by those families, and that he did not agree with Badenoch’s comments from during her campaign that maternity pay is “excessive” and has “gone too far”.
Then another Labour MP, Alex Baker, brought up Badenoch’s previous comments on people with special educational needs.
Baker said it was “shameful to read misguided claims that autistic people may well get better treatment and receive economic privileges and protections, made by the leader of the opposition.”
She called for the PM to “distance himself from those awful words”, to which Starmer said, “I’ll leave the leader of the opposition to respond to those words”, adding that it was “clearly a serious issue”.
Neil Coyle, another Labour MP, said: “The Tory leader – this week’s leader – is on record as saying she wants to scrap [the minimum wage] having clearly learnt nothing from July.
“Will the prime minister pledge to protect the minimum wage and increase it in this parliament as finances allow?”
Starmer said he was “surprised” by those comments as well, and noted that last Labour government “transformed” the working market with the national minimum wage.
Then Mary Glindon, another Labour MP, reminded the House how Badenoch had described partygate as “overblown”.
“For people and businesses in my constituency who followed the rules – for many of us at great personal cost – this is an insult,” she said.
Starmer seized that opportunity to make a dig towards Badenoch too, saying: “I’m sure the leader of the opposition was wrong to describe the public anger and upset as overblown. I’m sure she’ll want to clarify that at the first opportunity.”
Badenoch also tripped herself up during PMQs by asking Starmer to provide an “unscripted answer” on farmers “facing uncertainty” after the Budget.
The prime minister was quick to hit back: “If she’s going to complain about scripted answers, it’s probably best not to read that from a script.”
Badenoch even caused a stir by using her first question to call on Starmer to apologise on behalf of the foreign secretary David Lammy, after he previously criticised Trump.
Back in 2018, the MP called the then-president – who has just been re-elected – “a neo-Nazi sociopath”.
