This time last year, Boris Johnson marched into the summer recess with the lumbering swagger of an all-conquering prizefighter.
In his first appearance in the Commons as Prime Minister, he pummelled Jeremy Corbyn through the ropes. Battered. Banjaxed. Jezza looked so punch drunk it’s a mercy he didn’t require smelling salts.
Boris rarely emerges quite so blemish-free these days. In Sir Keir Starmer, he faces a more adroit performer.
Their final PMQs until September yesterday ended up being a decent end-of-term scrap: a good old back and forth across the despatch box. By the end, both will have waltzed off for the hols reasonably happy.
Sir Keir kicked off the session by announcing that, under his leadership, ‘national security will be the top priority for Labour’. One would think this might be the priority for any political party –until you consider the fondness Starmer’s predecessor held for the bearded mullahs of Iran.
He began by asking about the intelligence and security committee’s report on Russia, which criticised the Government’s negligence towards possible electoral interference. Why, Starmer asked, had such a vital report sat gathering dust in Downing Street for nine months?
The final PMQs until September yesterday saw Prime Minister Boris Johnson (pictured) scrapping with Opposition Leader Kier Starmer over national security and the Russia report
The Prime Minister was not going to be out-manoeuvred on security, least of all by Labour. Reputations, after all, are not easily disposed of. One does not simply shed them the way a boa constrictor wriggles from an old skin.
Boris brought up the Skripal poisonings in Salisbury. Remember when Corbyn refused to condemn Vladimir Putin?
Sir Keir ‘sat on his hands’ and did nothing while Labour ‘parroted the lines by the Kremlin’.
Starmer’s lips flapped and flubbered with indignation. Not true! He’d condemned the Salisbury attacks. He’d even – gasp! – supported Theresa May on the issue at the time.
What’s more, as Director of Public Prosecutions, he’d actually brought proceedings against Russia over Alexander Litvinenko’s murder.
‘Do yer homework, Borrrrris!’ someone heckled from the opposition benches. Deputy leader Angela Rayner, I think. Someone with Ms Rayner’s impressive timbre at any rate.
A din developed as each side took turns to flex their security credentials. It was good sport. Starmer kept pressing on the report’s delay. Why had the PM been so slow to deliver it?
Boris again ignored the question. He claimed Starmer’s obsession with the report was all about pressure from ‘Islingtonian Remainers’ who still couldn’t accept the EU referendum result. That old people versus the elite card again.
Starmer gave one of his long, weary sighs. As a lawyer, he’s used to having his lines of inquiry treated with respect. Here, his well-structured, sensible questions are met with pre-prepared gags and insulting ya-boos.
As a lawyer, Starmer (pictured top) is used to having his lines of inquiry treated with respect. Here, his well-structured, sensible questions are met with pre-prepared gags and insulting ya-boos, writes Deedes
Labour’s benches began to show their frustration. ‘Rubbish,’ Ben Bradshaw (Lab, Exeter) kept yelling. Mr Bradshaw, incidentally, has taken to wearing a fetching leopard skin face mask in the Chamber.
The PM regurgitated his claim that Starmer changes his views from day to day. ‘The leader of the opposition has more flip-flops than Bournemouth beach,’ he harrumphed.
Starmer, at last, had come prepared for this attack.
‘This from the former columnist who wrote two versions of every article!’ he replied – a reference to the two articles Johnson wrote for and against EU membership as he wondered which side to back in the referendum.
This was a half-decent retort, but Starmer delivered it almost reluctantly.
He took no pleasure in being hauled into Boris’s circus arena. He looked almost ashamed, the way an ambitious student might after being convinced to partake in some daft drinking game in the union when he’d much rather be having intellectual discussions back in halls.
The Labour leader’s best moment came when Boris reminded the House how Corbyn had once regularly appeared on Moscow’s state-controlled channel Russia Today. ‘Labour is under new management,’ Starmer replied proprietorially.
Indeed it is. Whether enough voters will warm to them any more than they did the previous lot is another matter.