Badenoch: “U-Turn”; Starmer Eurovision/FA Cup Final Riposte
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch sought to claim credit for the fuel-duty announcement at PMQs today, calling it a U-turn caused by her pressure on the government. Starmer rejected the framing in unusually sharp terms: “I know the leader of the opposition likes to claim responsibility for things that have got literally nothing to do with her. In her mind, she won Eurovision on Saturday and scored the winning goal in the FA Cup final.” Badenoch also pressed Starmer over Labour MPs having voted to ban new British oil and gas licences yesterday, framing the announcement as inconsistent with that vote.
Sky News political editor Beth Rigby described today’s PMQs as an “open goal” for the opposition: the challenges to the prime minister’s leadership only gave the opposition further ammunition. The Independent’s “Five things we learned” PMQs analysis pointed to the fuel-duty extension as the substantive headline, but framed it within the wider leadership-crisis news cycle. The political effect is that the Conservative response is being framed by Number 10 as opportunistic rather than substantive, even as the structural Burnham challenge to Starmer continues to grow. Badenoch’s line about Labour MPs having voted to ban new British oil and gas licences yesterday is the most substantive counter-argument: that the fuel duty extension is internally inconsistent with the rest of the Labour energy programme.