Photo by House of Commons
The Christmas spirit has certainly been visiting the comms advisers of Westminster. This week’s PMQs was packed full of zingers of the tone and quality one might expect from a Christmas cracker.
Keir Starmer kicked off by warning Reform, “If mysterious men from the east arrive bearing gifts, this time report it to the police” (a reference to the party’s former leader in Wales being jailed for taking Russian bribes), following it up with an attack on Reform MP Sarah Pochin “dreaming of a white Christmas” (which readers can work out for themselves). There were references across the House to the ghosts of Christmas Past and Future, to the season of good will, and of course to turkeys.
The highlight/lowlight of the session must go to Kemi Badenoch, who once again seemed to be enjoying herself as she accused the Prime Minister of not banning resident doctors from striking because “he doesn’t have the baubles”, causing MPs to lose it like a class of teenagers at the end of term singing a Christmas carol that includes the word “breast”. Dignified it was not.
Yet for all the forced jokes and references to seasonal jollity, the mood was fractious. Starmer, who is usually able to project a kind of rhetorical armour capable of shielding him for half an hour, looked tired and disheartened. Even his multiple references to Nigel Farage being absent from the chamber (the Reform leader had tweeted that he would sit in the gallery as PMQs had been “rigged” – ie, he hadn’t got a question) failed to energise him.
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For a start, the horrific shooting at a Chanukah event in Sydney on Sunday overshadowed proceedings. Starmer and Badenoch both began by condemning the attack and reiterating their support for the Jewish community, as did Ed Davey, who used one of his questions to ask what was being done to protect Jews in Britain. Badenoch went further, taking the opportunity to make a wider point about Islamic extremism, which she called “incompatible with British values”, saying it must be driven out of the country. Starmer did not have a response. After all that, segueing into the Christmas jokes was always going to be jarring. Terrorist attacks aren’t exactly festive.
Badenoch’s tactic as opposition leader was essentially a rerun of last week’s: listing as many things that have gone wrong for the government that could be fitted into six questions. Unemployment, taxes, the doctors’ strikes, and struggling pubs (not that Labour MPs would know, as some drinking establishments are apparently banning them). Starmer in response wanted to talk about the Erasmus scheme for British students announced today, as well as reminding the House that yet another former Tory has defected to Reform. Badenoch did not seem to care. The unions, she quipped, had bought the Prime Minister for life, not just for Christmas. Does that mean the unions would really rather give him back? Given Unison had hours before elected as its new general secretary Andrea Egan, who was expelled from Labour and is backed by left-wingers like John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn, this is a bit of a sore spot. Whatever Badenoch might suggest, relations between the government and the unions this Christmas are hardly warm.
Interestingly, Ed Davey chose to back the government on the issue of the doctors’ strike, referring to it as “irresponsible”. Is this another example of the Liberal Democrats cosying up to Labour in order to solidify the sense that the parties are coalescing into two broad blocs? Or simply an acknowledgement that public sympathy with resident doctors is low? Who can say – but watch out for the Labour-Lib Dem dynamic as we head into 2026 and a new era of multi-party politics.
All PMQs sessions ultimately go through the motions, but today’s more than most felt like an exercise in damage limitation for the Prime Minister ahead of recess. Other than Badenoch when making her bauble joke, the only person who seemed to be having fun was the SNP leader, Stephen Flynn, who cheerfully wished Starmer a merry Christmas and asked how he’d be spending his final one in Downing Street. Flynn is not alone, either on the Commons benches or outside of Westminster, in his prediction that it won’t be Starmer lighting the Downing Street Christmas tree in 2026.
[Further reading: Jamie Driscoll joins the Green Party]
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