Burnham's First PMQs: 'Fiscal Responsibility' Pledge Meets 'Spendthrift' Charge
Facing Kemi Badenoch for the first time as the bond market squeezed his Budget, the Prime Minister promised “a government grounded in fiscal responsibility” that “will stick to the fiscal rules”. Ms Badenoch said markets fear “a spendthrift prime minister who wants to say yes to everyone but cannot tell us where the money is coming from” — demanding “is he preparing to raise taxes again, yes or no?” — and jibed that a PM should be “a leader, not a people pleaser”. Mr Burnham declined to “write the Budget here”, and noted her new shadow chancellor “helped to write the Truss mini budget”.
Both leaders arrived with the same script conceit — the other is the market risk — and the session sketched the argument that will run to the next election: Ms Badenoch’s cleverest weapon was borrowed authority, quoting Lord O’Neill, the Prime Minister’s own former adviser, on the statement investors least wanted to hear; Mr Burnham’s was history, welding her new economic team to the Truss mini-Budget to Tory cries of “point-scoring”. His answer on defence — NATO commitments met “by 2035” — conceded no ground to her call for 3% now. What the exchange could not disguise is that October’s Budget will resolve the argument one way: with yields where they are, “fiscal responsibility” and “no tax rises” cannot both survive contact with the arithmetic. Watch which pledge gives way on the 28th.