Kemi stepped into the chamber with her Clint Eastwood gait – one small woman against a bawling horde: QUENTIN LETTS watches new Tory leader’s first PMQs_Nhy
Well that was different. At six minutes to noon the chamber’s rear double-doors were flung open and in stepped Clint Eastwood. In a manner of speaking. The gait was certainly the same, even if Clint never wore his hair in braids.
A minute, solitary figure unencumbered by clutter made her way to the opposition despatch box. There was none of the normal politician’s bustle, no retinue of hombres and unctuous Herberts. As Kemi Badenoch arrived for the first PMQs her sole outrider was parliamentary private secretary Julia Lopez.
The two women had to walk past a phalanx of tall, powerfully built Labour men behind the Speaker’s chair. Navendu Mishra, Luke Pollard and Mark Tami were dressed in dark suits, exuding the status quo. This is bruiser territory, their presence seemed to say. This is the combat zone. If Mrs Badenoch, who is no taller than a National Hunt jockey, felt daunted by their presence she little showed it. Cool cat Kemi.
The most noticeable thing was that slow, insouciant walk. It was a tread that seemed to say ‘hit me with your worst, guys’. Speaker Hoyle from his throne threw her a word of welcome. She waggled an amused eyebrow back at him and then took her seat beside Priti Patel, awaiting the onslaught.
Kemi Badenoch waggled an amused eyebrow at the Speaker and then took her seat beside Priti Patel, awaiting the onslaught, writes QUENTIN LETTS
The noise of the Commons at full bray has always been enough to curdle cream but the din this Labour majority generates is louder than any I can recall from previous parliaments. Against them, at the opposition box, there just stood this composed figure clad in blue, a smile breaking to reveal that gap in her front teeth.
She allowed the argy-bargy to subside before thanking the Prime Minister for his ‘almost warm’ words of welcome. Now she quietly set about her business. The optics were instantly theatrical: one small woman against a bawling horde.
Odd to think that Nigel Farage last week claimed she was just the ‘same old Tory’. Mr Farage (Reform, Florida) is not often wrong but on this he was sorely mistaken. Everything about Mrs Badenoch’s presence felt different.
Was a tremor discernible in her fingertips? Yet Sir Keir Starmer’s hands were shaking more, and he has years of experience. He tried giving her advice – ‘one thing I learned as leader of the opposition…’ he honked from a height. It sounded patronising.
Sir Keir and his Cabinet ministers pointed at her and cackled and accused her of student politics. Almost every backbench Labour MP on the speaking list had been programmed to attack her. Far from diminishing her, they made her more significant.
Sir Keir and his Cabinet ministers cackled and accused her of student politics
She kept her cool and persisted in a smoky contralto. She soon had David Lammy squeezing his knees by reminding the House of the ‘derogatory and scatalogical’ remarks the Foreign Secretary made about Donald Trump. Ouch.
Sir Keir insisted that a dinner he had with Mr Trump recently had been a tremendous success. The Commons tried to imagine Donald clinking glasses with his new friend Sir Keir. The image remained elusive.
Sir Keir had opened the session by congratulating President-elect Trump. This was met with a remarkable, cold, sullen silence from the Labour benches.
Torcuil Crichton (Western Isles) would later salute Mr Trump as a son of Lewis, though admitted he would have rather the result had gone to ‘the Isle of Harris’. Mr Crichton was the only Labour backbencher to show respect to the newly elected leader of the Western world.
Mrs Badenoch’s debut was not without peril. She accused Sir Keir of relying on ‘scripted answers’ and the House noticed that she herself was using some sparse notes. ‘Reading! Reading!’ shouted the Labour numpties. Mrs Badenoch stayed calm under fire.
Gateshead’s oafish Mark Ferguson roared abuse and scratched his wobbling belly. His fellow Labour hecklers included Torsten Bell (Swansea West), Graeme Downie (Dunfermline), Alex Barros-Curtis (Cardiff West) and the not altogether genteel Kevin McKenna (Sittingbourne and Sheppey).
It’s almost as if Labour is scared of her. Rightly so, perhaps.
