But she has another, as the Guardian live politics blog pointed out. She lacks support from her own side of the House:
Towards the end of the session Greg Smith asked a question that backed up the Badenoch “jobs tax” critique. ... On its own, a single question like this is unlikely to make much impression. But half a dozen of them might.
(To be fair to the Tories, they did not get half a dozen backbench questions. They just got three, and the other two were devoted to Scunthorpe steelworks and the child killer Colin Pitchfork. There is a lottery to decide who gets called at PMQs, and maybe the Conservatives were just unlucky in their allocation this week. But maybe some of them are not bothering to bid for a question. In total just four Tory MPs spoke at PMQs today – exactly the same as the number of Liberal Democrats who got a question.)
You can get strange results from lotteries: the Tories did remarkably badly in the ballot for private member's bills held when the new parliament met after last year's general election.
But this lack of backbench questions may be a sign that the Tories have already written Kemi Badenoch off. Or it could be a sign they are simply demoralised. Or a sign they are too busy on Twitter reading the latest conspiracy theory from Elon Musk.
Whatever the reason for the Tories' lack of interest, it is telling that Josh Self chose to focus his piece about today's PMQs on the exchange between Starmer and Ed Davey on Trump and tariffs - and called it for Ed.
There aren't many true Conservative backbenchers in this HoC. Of 121 MPs, 20 are in the Shadow Cabinet, 30 or so have a Shadow Spokesperson role and 20ish work for the Whips. They should really be a well organised bunch...
ReplyDeleteI hesitate to question you on this (I have been wrong too often on here recently) but are you *sure * the Tories did well in the Private Members Bill Ballot? I heard that they didn't win a single one of the 20 places, whereas the Lib Dems got loads. That was understood at the time to indicate that Tory morale was at rock bottom, which is why they hadn't bothered to compete.
ReplyDeleteYou're right: the Tories did do remarkably badly in that ballot. But isn't that what I say?
DeletePerhaps I have misunderstood you. The point I was emphasising is that the Tories did badly in the Ballot because they couldn't be bothered to enter. That shows that their morale was low then, and you have confirmed that it is low now.
DeleteI'm with you now. Yes, a lack of Tory MPs entering the ballot was probably the reason for that. I was put off the scent because my own MP exclaimed over how unlikely the outcome was. Perhaps he was the only one from his party who entered?
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