After last week’s jaw-dropping defection of Natalie Elphicke from the Conservative benches to Labour, what surprises did Sir Keir Starmer have in store for Prime Minister’s Questions this time?
Labour MPs took up a tweeted invitation from Daily Mirror journalist Mikey Smith to ooh and aah as Tory backbenchers entered the chamber, inviting them to follow the Dover MP in crossing the floor.
They even targeted Conservative Chief Whip Simon Hart, who smiled as he took his rightful place with the Government. Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle drew laughs as he harrumphed: “I’m not sure the chief whip is [going to defect].”
It was then down to the more serious business of Sir Keir and Rishi Sunak taking lumps out of each other. The Labour leader ridiculed the “war on lanyards” declared by “common sense minister” Esther McVey, who doesn’t like Civil Servants hanging their work badges from gay pride lanyards in rainbow colours.
Not everyone on her own side appears convinced by the opening of this new front of the culture wars.
“Instead of confiscating lanyards like some jumped up milk monitor,” he said the PM would be better served finding out how many prisoners are being freed on early release, to relieve pressure on jam-packed jails, and whether any were convicted of violent offences.
Mr Sunak retorted that it was important to uphold impartiality in the Civil Service - “perhaps he could ask his chief of staff about that?”
The Tory benches warmed to that jibe, after Sue Gray’s controversial exit from senior roles in Whitehall including “partygate” investigator to serve under Sir Keir.
The PM was also keen to do violence on Sir Keir’s refusal to match his vow to raise defence spending by tens of billions to 2.5% of national income. He declared: “He can’t be trusted to keep this country safe.”
That touched on a new pre-election theme unveiled by Mr Sunak on Monday, drawing on national security threats around the world to portray Labour under Sir Keir as soft on defence.
Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner and shadow foreign secretary David Lammy had both previously voted against the renewal of Britain’s Trident nuclear deterrent, he noted, adding: “It’s clear that you simply can’t trust Labour with our country’s security.”
But on the issue of early releases, he also stressed to Sir Keir, a former director of public prosecutions: “It’s always the same with the Labour Party: soft on crime and soft on criminals.”
The Opposition leader in turn mocked Monday’s speech as “version 7.0” of the Sunak premiership after various relaunches by No10 already.
One version saw Mr Sunak tell last year’s Conservative conference that he was an agent of change, despite the Tories having been in power for more than a decade.
He rather undercut that by then bringing Lord David Cameron back into the Cabinet, as Foreign Secretary. It was a huge surprise, including to the former PM himself.
How many more versions will we get before the general election?
The election is pencilled in for the “second half of the year”, according to Mr Sunak. That’s generally seen as denoting October or November, unless the PM has his own surprise in the offing.
