"The Critic's" Robert Hutton on a day of "Dazzling incompetence" by Labour

Below are extracts published on "The Critic" website from a piece by Robert Hutton after an extraordinary 24 hours in which the Labour government decided to tear itself apart in public.

Downing Street accused Labour cabinet members of plotting to oust the PM and Chancellor.

We learned that the PM thinks his backbenchers are "feral" and don't understand the markets.

Actually, he's absolutely right on that second point, but it wasn't very clever of him to let them find out he believes it.

Opposition leader Kemi Badenoch was presented with an open goal at Prime Ministers' Questions today and slammed the ball into the back of the net.

This is what Robert Hutton had to say about it.

"It was a day of dazzling incompetence. Stunning ineptitude. Astonishing uselessness. How do we even begin to plumb the depths of daftness of this Downing Street operation?

With Labour MPs grumpy and Cabinet ministers anxious to let people know that they are available for any vacancies that might arise, the prime minister’s team decided to launch a briefing war against enemies real and imagined."

The chief target of the briefing was the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting. He was due to tour the broadcast studios on Wednesday morning talking about waiting lists. Instead, he found himself asked if he was indeed plotting to replace Keir Starmer. 

He was not. “Nor did I shoot JFK,” he went on. “I don’t know where Lord Lucan is, had nothing to do with Shergar, and I do think that the US did manage to do the moon landings.”

“This is a united team,” the prime minister replied, somewhat implausibly

Now, that may not be the whole story. It’s safe to say that, were a vacancy to arise at the top of the Labour Party, the Health Secretary would be available. But it was also a good answer. A better answer, frankly, than the current prime minister can generally manage in most interviews. If this manoeuvre had been planned to allow Streeting to show off his leadership chops while professing loyalty, it couldn’t have gone better.

But come on, surely the conversations with journalists had at least put an end to mutterings about the prime minister’s position? Well, let’s see how the BBC is reporting this: “Speculation over Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership”. Oh." 

"Kemi Badenoch arrived in the House of Commons like a footballer who’s approaching the goal with the ball at her feet when the remaining defender turns around and punches the goalkeeper.

People often talk about an open goal at prime minister’s questions, but rarely is the goal quite as open as this. Labour MPs had crowded into the chamber to watch. Some couldn’t even get in: Calvin Bailey could be seen in a doorway, peering over a colleague’s shoulder. It wasn’t entirely certain whose side they were on.

The first question went to Tory MP Lincoln Jopp, the hero of Sierra Leone, whose 1997 defence of Freetown’s Mammy Yoko Hotel earned him the Military Cross. “I somehow managed to survive a bloody and violent attempted coup,” he began. “So if the prime minister wants any advice, he has only to ask.” Even Starmer laughed at that.

Badenoch lined up her shot. Streeting had described a “toxic culture” in Downing Street. “He’s right, isn’t he?”

“Let me be absolutely clear,” the prime minister replied. “Any attack on any member of my Cabinet is completely unacceptable.” A position with which more than one person in Downing Street very clearly disagrees."

"Badenoch allowed herself a joke about Streeting — “we all know that there is only one waiting list he really wants to cut” — and asked if Starmer had confidence in his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney. She taunted the Labour benches with the words that had been used about them — “feral MPs” — and the claim that the bond markets would collapse if Starmer were removed. 

“This is a united team,” the prime minister replied, somewhat implausibly. Remember: the briefing to the opposite effect came from his own office."

"So what on earth is happening? Usually at this point someone will pop up and explain that the prime minister simply needs better advisers. It’s interesting that they haven’t. Perhaps the consensus is that the advisers need a better prime minister."