That was a historic PMQs, but not a memorable one. It was historic because for the first time a prime minister responded to questions virtually. Given that the video quality was not great, and the atmospherics were somewhat lacking, the PM probably won’t be keen to repeat this any time soon. But in parliamentary terms it was still a moment, and one that will even harder for Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the Commons, to continue his rearguard fight against virtual participation in the chamber.
But PMQs was not memorable because the exchanges between Boris Johnson and Sir Keir Starmer did not really take us into new territory, and they were rather lacking in bite. One problem, of course, other events at Westminster this morning have been far more interesting.
Starmer focused on three issues: Scotland, financial support for people self-isolating and the problems with PPE procurement. When the history of this decade gets written, Scotland may turn out to be the biggest story, and Starmer’s line, that “the single biggest threat to the future of the United Kingdom is the prime minister every time he opens his mouth”, was true enough to hit home. But Johnson successfully deflected the question about his “disaster” jibe by focusing on separatism, not devolution, and this primarily felt like a battle between Johnson and the SNP, in which Starmer is not a principal agent.
On financial support for people who are self-isolating, Starmer was clear and persuasive, if not particularly original. Johnson’s defence of the current arrangements as “reasonable” sounded glib, and his attempt to depict Labour as U-turn on test and trace was unconvincing. But he was on stronger ground on the third topic, the PPE procurement failings. Last week when this was raised Johnson conceded that there had been problems (“some of them more effectively than others”), but this week he was more gung-ho, focusing on the “we were in an emergency” argument and pointing out that at the time Labour was criticising the government for ignoring offers to supply PPE. He was right; Labour was. That does not justify the remarkable profligacy documented by the NAO and others, but in this particular bit of the exchange Johnson held Starmer to a draw.
For Starmer, perhaps none of this matters much. The outcome of his battle with a section of his party over the future of Jeremy Corbyn will matter much more to his leadership than anything said here.
The most interesting parts of PMQs came elsewhere. Johnson did not deny that the government is planning to abandon the 0.7% international aid spending target. (See 12.02pm.) And it was surprising how hopeless his answer was when asked why the UK now seems to have the worst Covid record in Europe for deaths and the economy. (See 12.29pm.) Given how central this question will be to the coronavirus inquiry, you might have expected Johnson to have given it more thought.
