It had been a relatively quiet night. Apart from Donald Trump giving a long, rambling press conference in which he offered only a few mild insults to his supposed allies and posting mockups of Canada and Greenland covered in the Stars and Stripes. Apart from that. But that barely raises an eyebrow these days.
Still, any respite – even 12 hours – is to be welcomed. Gives Keir Starmer a moment to catch his breath. A morning when the news cycle looks vaguely like it did the night before. Even if that is situation normal: all fucked up. A chance to think. Rather than be bounced into yet another psychotic parallel universe. Shame then that Kemi Badenoch didn’t also use the time to do the same. Thinking has never appeared to be her strong point.
There are times when the leader of the opposition has to play the long game at prime minister’s questions. To not make everything about party politics. Starmer understood this when Labour was in opposition. Time and again at critical moments in the Ukraine war, he would make a point of backing Boris Johnson in his support for Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It wasn’t just about presenting a united front. It was about showing he had the nous and the judgment to put the national interest first.
There again, Kemi is always going to be Kemi. She just can’t help herself. At heart, she’s just not that serious a politician. She’s an opportunist who can’t see the bigger picture. Prefers the cheap shot to the exclusion of all else. Can’t bear the thought of getting through PMQs without some dig at Starmer and Labour. Still, at least she got the first question about right. One out of six ain’t bad. She agreed with Keir that the future of Greenland was for the Greenlanders and the Danes alone.
Kemi then went rogue. If Starmer believed in self-determination for Greenland, how come he didn’t extend the same rights to the Chagossians? After all, even The Donald had now rubbished the UK government’s deal with Mauritius. You’d have thought this might have raised a red flag for Badenoch. Almost everyone who hitches their wagon to something the US president has said gets burned sooner or later. Because he invariably changes his mind. Just nine months previously, Trump had given the Chagos deal the thumbs up. Nor was he over the detail. He seemed to think the UK was making money out of the deal. He normally approves of that.
Even if Kemi hadn’t brought up Trump’s change of mind, her internal logic collapsed in on itself. At no time in the past 50 years has the self-determination of the Chagossians been Tory party policy. So why now? It was as though she was making it up as she was going along. Just where did she imagine the Chagossians would go? All the islands apart from Diego Garcia are uninhabitable. And you can’t imagine the US would pack up their airbase on Diego Garcia to let the islanders back. So it was all completely mad. Just an ill-thought-through soundbite designed to appeal to the less attentive of her backbenchers.
Keir went to town. This was exactly the level of debate he had come to expect from the leader of the opposition. She was siding with a president who had only used a Chagos deal he didn’t understand as a wedge. Trump was just angry at not getting his own way over Greenland and was lashing out in whatever way he could. And Kemi didn’t have the judgment to see what she was doing by backing an out-of-control US president who was hellbent on destroying Nato and Europe. All for a quick gag at PMQs. She had just sold out her credibility by jumping on The Donald bandwagon.
Look, Starmer went on. These things aren’t easy. The UK had no choice but to keep trying to deal with Trump. Showboating the country into a trade war by threatening retaliatory tariffs was not in the national interest. We had to pretend that the president was rational, even when he wasn’t. Otherwise we might as well give up now. And we couldn’t give up because there was still a war going on between Russia and Ukraine that couldn’t be won without American help.
But on Greenland he would never yield. That was his red line. Our red line. This was his strongest stance on Trump so far. It turned out you can push Keir only so far but no more.
For the rest of the session, Badenoch was on the back foot. She tried to make a play of Keir showing no leadership over the Chinese embassy – she seemed to think the Chinese have gone on a spying work-to-rule until they got their planning permission through – but it was her leadership that was found wanting. Starmer ran through some of her more obvious failings. Her support for Trump over Chagos; her excitement at the Liz Truss budget; the endless stream of defections.
“I threw Robert Jenrick out of my party,” Kemi insisted. Oh really, said Keir. Was that before or after you had corrected the typos in his defection speech. Kemi looked crushed. Starmer continued. “They shout at PMQs on a Wednesday and defect on a Thursday.” In which case, Richard Holden, the shadow transport secretary, must be on defection watch, because Lindsay Hoyle threw him out of the chamber. Holden didn’t appear to be making any more noise than any other Tory MP. But maybe the speaker was just having a bad day.
Still, at least we were spared Nigel Farage trying to dance on the head of the Trumpian pin. Nige was off in Davos. Having said he would never go there. Too many globalists making money for themselves, he once said. Maybe now he thinks that’s a good thing. He’s going to charge punters a whole lot more for birthday videos when he can do it from the cabinet room. Like The Donald, Nige believes the main purpose of a career in politics is to cash in. Just let’s hope he remembers to declare his earnings next time.
The Bonfire of the Insanities by John Crace (Guardian Faber Publishing, £16.99). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
