4p off gherkins.

Kemi Badenoch was on a roll on Wednesday. Not only did she push hard on the King of the Mid-North’s newly-revealed thinking about rejoining the European Union, but she also had a ball in her response to the Budget, training quick-fire bazookas on Chancellor John Healey (Rawmarsh & Conisborough, Labour) “resign, again!”, Education Secretary Lucy Powell (Manchester Central, Labour) “can’t add” and Wes Streeting (Ilford North, Labour) Defence Secretary “still not doing his job.”) One of Badenoch’s best Chamber performances, sadly bound to be overshadowed by the dull-as-ditchwater “do no harm” 98 unmemorable point Budget delivered by a Chancellor in full-on “let’s just make it to the end of the day” mode.

Badenoch opened by asking whether the Prime Minister wanted a referendum on rejoining the EU, to which Burnham replied that the commitment not to relitigate BREXIT in Labour’s 2024 manifesto was still binding. The Conservative leader suggested that this made it sound as if “he doesn’t know if he wants another EU referendum.” But of course, we all know that what the King of Halfway to Scotland is aiming for is to rejoin the EU WITHOUT another inconvenient democratic process. That whole democracy lark has shown itself to be unreliable.

It would be comforting to believe that Burnham had popped open the “renegotiate BREXIT” line after a great deal of thought and had concluded that even though the prospect of negotiating banana curvature regulations with Frau von der Leyen was only a very unlikely outcome it was still good for a laugh at the Conservatives’ electoral unity prospects. However, the Prime Minister returned on each occasion to a justification for his possibly not-so-totally-thought-through EU renegotiation burble that the upcoming EU summit in November represents “an opportunity to improve the poor deal which they (the Tories) negotiated.”

Badenoch kept pushing, quoting a recently successful by-election candidate who, in campaigning in Makerfield, had said that “the last thing we should do right now is re-run those arguments.” Everyone’s favourite Pol-Tok star reminded Badenoch that back she had claimed that it had been a mistake to leave the EU without a plan for growth.

Burnham then fell back on the Starmer classic of trying to respond to LoTO’s questions with questions of his own, asking for her to explain why she had been unable to tell LBC whether Brexit was good for London. This “question the questioner” tactic is not impressive generally as it smacks of wholesale avoidance, but on this occasion Badenoch had a neat riposte lined up in advance, asking the PM whether he agreed with himself or not” before cracking back with ‘He is the Prime Minister, not me” which raised a laugh.

The Tory leader also bravely returned to the scene of the crime to remind the House of the seemingly endless Brexit debates that paralysed Parliament in 2017, claiming: “It was because that side of the House would not respect the result and they are doing it again.”

Burnham’s response was that his plan had the support of business and then asked Badenoch to “send a strong message that Britain is calling for a better Brexit deal” by backing the PM’s negotiating stance herself. The Tory leader closed the sequence by reminding the House that this Prime Minister does not always say what he means and that, quite often, he does not know what he means, either. An easy 3-1 victory for Badenoch before the Budget came on.

We deal with the Budget separately, but it is worth noting that the Leader of the Opposition’s form continued after that rather lugubrious affair, when she had an inspired an extemporary knockabout at the expense of a number of the Labour Front Bench’s finest adornments.

Mrs Badenoch’s best line was undoubtedly:

“The Prime Minister came in promising to reverse 40 years of Neo-Liberalism, but instead we got 4p off gherkins.”

After a quick drive-by mauling of Wes Streeting “he could not even commit to 3% on TV the other day. He is still not doing his job” the Conservative leader really found her form when the all-too-easy-to-puncture form of Lucy Powell, the Education Secretary caught her attention. “The Chancellor knows that next week interest rates are expected to rise again. Only the Labour party would think that the answer is to spend more money. I know the Education Secretary cannot count, so she thinks this is all fantastic. Come on, have you got something more to add? Can you add?” I think it’s probably safe to say that Mrs Badenoch is not a great fan of the Education Secretary.

Having caught sight of the Pensions Minister leaving the Chamber and bidding him a cheery adieu, LoTO moved on to Angela Rayner, highlighting the increasingly obvious gap between Labour promises and their delivery: “Labour said that it was going to build 1.5m new homes. I remember when the Housing Secretary first started I told her that she had been stitched up. Do you know what she is saying now, Madam Deputy Speaker? She says that now there is a “slim chance” that Labour will build 1.5 million new homes!”

Badenoch had a very good day in the House. She must hope that she hits such excellent form on another Wednesday when not quite so much attention is bound to be dedicated to the Chancellor’s tax tinkering…

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Alex