Prime Minister Rishi Sunak endured a blistering PMQs on Wednesday, fresh from Tory local election humiliation (Picture: PA)
Keir Starmer lambasted Rishi Sunak for being ‘a dodgy salesman’ today as a Tory MP defected to Labour in the wake of disastrous local elections.
Dover MP Natalie Elphicke deserting the Tories moments before PMQs today was yet another humiliation for the Prime Minister, after the Conservatives lost more than 500 council seats at last week’s ballot box humiliation.
Elphicke said there were ‘two key deciding factors’ behind her move to Labour: the government’s record on housing and the safety and security of our borders.
It follows Dr Dan Poulter, Suffolk Central MP, quitting over NHS ’chaos’ and Sunak losing a string of mayoral races, including Andy Street’s in the West Midlands last Thursday.
Labour, meanwhile, won several councils and mayoralties, including London, York and North Yorkshire, which includes the PM’s own Richmond constituency.
And it all made for a brutal PMQs for Sunak on Wednesday.
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Starmer opened the session by demanding: ‘If one week a Tory MP, who’s also a doctor, says the Prime Minister can’t be trusted with the NHS and joins Labour, and the next week the Tory MP for Dover, on the front line of the small boats crisis, says the Prime Minister cannot be trusted with our borders and joins Labour, what is the point of this failed government staggering on?’
Pointing out that Sunak had been ‘on the receiving end of some of the biggest by-election swings in history’, Starmer also pressed the PM on rumours of a leadership challenge: ‘How many more times do the public and his own MPs need to reject him before he takes the hint?’
Sunak hit back by suggesting the general election is the battle that matters: ‘This time last year, I reminded him of some advice actually from his own mentor Tony Blair, who had said said at the time that he can be as cocky as he likes about local elections, but come a general election, it’s policy that counts.’
Sir Keir Starmer with former Conservative MP Natalie Elphicke in his parliamentary office (Picture: PA)
And after being taunted by Starmer about Labour’s North Yorkshire victory, the PM continued: ‘I can tell him that the people of North Yorkshire believe in hard work, secure borders, lower taxes and straight talking common sense Mr. Speaker, they’re not going to get any of that from a virtue-signalling lawyer from North London.’
Starmer responded that ‘in the many places he calls home’ people backed Labour at local elections, including Southampton, whose football team Sunak supports, as well as Westminster’s Downing Street, and London’s Kensington.
He went on: ‘He’s finally found something common with the British public, no matter where he calls home all his neighbours are backing this changed Labour Party and they keep rejecting him because they have sussed him out.
‘They know there’s nothing behind the boasts the gimmicks, the smug smile. He’s a dodgy salesman, desperate to sell them a dud.’