Having got British History 1930-’97 under the belt, TWOP can turn back to the House of Commons after it returned from its Whitsun break on Monday.
PMQs was strangely undramatic in the first week back because of the structural effect of Henry Nowak’s murder and the “two-tier policing” issue which the PM, LotO and even the LibDems were determined to avoid becoming incendiary.
Wednesday 3rd June
As a result, LotO led on welfare benefits, asking the PM whether he knew how much benefit payments had increased under the Labour government. Of course, Sir Keir did not know, but he managed to sandbag each successive question with his normal and very odd, but now normalised approach of not answering questions and just embarking on a “not my fault” tour.
LotO did quote Pat McFadden’s message revealed in Monday’s Mandelson document dump about the discussion in Labour being “who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others” but this seemed to be a squandered opportunity before an open goal. Mrs Badenoch’s best line was describing the PM’s WhatsApp settings as “disappearing messages from a disappearing Prime Minister.”
However, Quip of the Day was definitely won by Sir Ed Davey, (Kingston & Surbiton, LibDem) who quietly but effectively disparaged the current Labour Party obsession with writing long-form essays/suicide notes as a redefinition of “drone warfare.” Bravo!
However, although Nigel Farage (Clacton, Reform) asked only a fairly formally structured question, asking the PM to consider that millions of people in Britain who believe that they live and resent living under “two-tier policing”, Farage’s presence seemed to dominate the chamber. His question seemed to cause a mass hysteria moment for many Labour MPs with cries of “condemn the violence” and a general feeling of exasperation.
However, this is exactly the reaction that the leader of Reform was angling for. “Our Nige” also cropped up as the subject of other questions from Tristan Osborne (Chatham & Aylesford, Labour) and Calvin Bailey (Leyton & Wanstead, Labour), thus demonstrating that the Member for Clacton has more impact in the House than the PM likes to believe. A bland question effectively took Reform in to a more dominant position in the House than their numbers can currently justify.
Tuesday 2nd June
Shabana Mahmood KC (Birmingham Ladywood, Labour) Home Secretary, came to the House to make a statement about the murder of Henry Nowak in Southampton in December 2025 following the conclusion of the trial of his murderer, Vickrum Digwa, and the release of the disturbing bodycam footage of Henry Nowak’s inappropriate arrest while he lay dying.
The debate following the Home Secretary’s statement rehearsed the issue of “two-tier policing.” This is bound to cause significant political debate. Robert Jenrick (Newark, Reform) immediately jumped in with a “White Lives Matter” point that seemed unnecessary, but which probably indicates the way Reform will go with this issue. Jenrick is a pill.
Monday 1st June
A second batch of documents relating to Lord Mandelson’s appointment as Ambassador to the USA dropped on Monday afternoon. The most immediate conclusion that everyone leafing through the document (metaphorically, in fact three large PDFs) was that Keir Starmer very sensibly uses the WhatsApp “Disappearing Messages” function: rather like his Government, Sir Keir is almost entirely absent!
Another revelation from Hapless Jones (Bristol North West, Labour) Chief Secretary to the PM, came quite early on (Volume I, page 9) which explained that “On 31st March the SRO wrote to Peter Mandelson – via his solicitors – to request information held on his personal phone. Peter Mandelson declined to comply with this request. The Government has no further recourse to search the personal devices of Peter Mandelson.”
Together with Sir Keir’s WhatsApp “Disappearing Message” function, this suggests one very clear action for Government: insist that all ministerial communications (including personal communications made by ministers) should be recorded.
Alex Burghart (Brentwood & Ongar, Conservative) Shadow CDoL, had quite a demagogic moment in response, saying “It was clear that due diligence was not followed. It is a failure that is visible from space, it is a failure that will define this Prime Minsiter’s premiership, it is a failure that will be written as his political epitaph.”
However, the most consequential commitment from Government came from John Healey (Rawmarsh & Conisborough) SoS Defence early on in his oral answers saying “… the Prime Minister is determined to publish [the Defence Investment Plan] before the NATO summit.” So that’s clear then: 7th July. (Although a cynic might point out that the Secretary of State did not specify which NATO summit. 2027 perhaps?)
Thank you for reading and please check out our instagram @theworldofukpolitics,
Alex
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