A torpid and evasive turn at PMQs rose to already low expectations of answering Labour’s questions
Where’s that 10-year prison sentence when you need it? Too many more prime minister’s questions like this and everyone will be making false claims on their arrival documents in the hope of getting sent down. And begging for no parole and a cell with no TV. There again, it might just be easier and cheaper to bang up Boris Johnson instead. After all, Boris and the truth have seldom even been on nodding terms with one another, so it wouldn’t be too hard for parliament to come up with some new law he has broken.
There was a brief four-month period after Keir Starmer became Labour leader when PMQs felt animated. Relevant even, with Starmer time and again getting under Johnson’s skin. Since then, the balance of power has shifted somewhat. Not so much that Keir’s questions have become any less coherent; rather that Boris has managed to nullify them with a mixture of bluff and bluster so that no one really cares that much any more. Johnson has shamelessly managed to lower people’s expectations to the point where everyone would be astonished if he were to give a straight answer to a straight question. He has become the overlord of political anti-matter.
