Kemi Badenoch and Keir Starmer clearly didn’t spend their summer breaks working on their performances at Prime Minister’s Questions. Today’s exchanges between the two leaders fell quickly into the usual meandering grudge match of accusations about blowing up and running down the economy, and ministers resigning or not resigning. Each question was ostensibly about the economy but included a barb about Angela Rayner’s tax affairs, and each answer offered a rambling defence of Labour’s policies, the standard criticism of Tory mess and a defence of Rayner. We learned very little, and Starmer was neither under pressure nor impressive.

Mind you, perhaps we did learn that Starmer is more prepared to be effusive about Rayner than he was about Rachel Reeves earlier in the summer: he took care to s

See Full Page