Nigel Farage is treated differently to every other MP; routinely disparaged, mocked and shouted down in Parliament, it is actually a testament to just how terrified the rest of the House is of him. At PMQs today the man rose to put a perfectly salient question about the need to be a tad suspicious about slippery French leader Emmanuel Macron, a man who is unlikely to win any prizes for political selflessness.
But you could barely hear the MP for Clacton because Mr Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, allowed one intensely irritating, ill-mannered, Labour oik to shout across him constantly. Until, noises off, a lone but very angry voice bellowed “WILL YOU SHUT UP!”
The whole farago however showed not only how petrified Labour MPs are of the man but also served as a useful metaphor, indicating Hoyle, perhaps the very last Labour MP with even the faintest sense of what is going on, finally joined his colleagues showing a complete loss of control.
Losing control is what the Labour Party party specialises in.
Starmer has lost control of illegal immigration (20,000 in the first six months of 2025, a record);
Starmer has lost control of his backbenchers (more than 100 humiliated him, leaving his much vaunted welfare bill in tatters);
Starmer has lost control of the economy (with the Office for Budget Responsibility yesterday basically admitting Britain was screwed);
And he has lost control of his manifesto - because, as Kemi Badenoch grilled him over Labour’s tax and spend plans today, his preening ego forced him to make a terrible error of judgement - he actually answered a question at PMQs.
Kemi threw out a fairly standard grenade of a PMQs question - nothing dramatic, the kind our slippery PM is well-schooled in not answering.
But it turned into a battlefield nuclear weapon which even as I scribble is threatening to detonate catastrophically for the Government.
Kemi asked: “In the manifesto last year Labour promised not to increase income tax, not to increase national insurance and not to increase VAT.. does the Prime Minister still stand by his promises?”
And a preening Starmer, thinking himself quite the raconteur, shot to his feet and replied: “Yes”.
Which means he is now screwed.
Or, more accurately, we are.
In that one moment of too-high self-regard Stamer took Income Tax, National Insurance, VAT, and Corporation Tax off the table as money-raising avenues to find the £20bn he is going to need sharpish to fill the fiscal black hole of Rachel’s making.
So where, pray tell Prime Minister, is the money coming from? A wealth tax perchance?
Oh yes.
And don’t think that means a tax on the super-rich who are leaving the UK in droves - it means a tax on you if you’re making a living rather than using your crippling writers’ cramp to claim benefits.
Kemi accused Starmer of "flirting with Neil Kinnock's demand for a wealth tax" and said: “Let's be honest about what that means. This is a tax on all of our constituents, on their houses, on their pensions. It would be a tax on ambition.
“Will the Prime Minister rule this out?”
Er, he wouldn’t.
That IMF bail-out gets ever closer by the day.
Oh and Rachel didn't cry. But given what's coming she probably should have.
