Kemi Badenoch passes up big chance to make Andy Burnham squirm at PMQs
Kemi Badenoch fell back into her old scattergun ways in the Commons on Wednesday.
Kemi Badenoch struggled at Prime Minister’s Questions in her early days as Leader of the Opposition.
The Tory leader was quite nervy, sensitive and would get riled up by Sir Keir Starmer.
Her questions were often all over the place. Just when you thought she had the PM backed into a corner, Mrs Badenoch would let him out by asking about a different topic.
Over time she has improved massively. Sir Keir’s torrid time in office gave her plenty of ammunition.
Mrs Badenoch now cuts a much more confident figure. She has a calm but scathing style, and is much more direct with her line of questioning.
But on Wednesday she fell back into her old ways and had too much of a scattergun approach.
All the while there was an open goal right there, just waiting for her to take it and make Andy Burnham squirm.
Before Mrs Badenoch’s was up, Tory MP Jeremy Mayhew asked the Prime Minister about a deleted register of interests showing that he had two hospitality dinners with Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak.
He had previously said that he only had one “significant” meeting with the chairman - leading to accusations that he has been covering up his links to the scandal-hit football club.
It has been a thorny issue for the PM. He has already blundered on it, backtracking after saying he would be “really concerned to lose” City’s Abu Dhabi owners despite the club being found to have “systematically” broken Premier League rules.
In his answer to Mr Mayhew, Mr Burnham said that no one from Man City ever raised the charges with him, and said that the hospitality meetings were included in his statement on Monday.
It set Mrs Badenoch up well to make things difficult for the PM and knock his popularity a bit.
Surely she would point out that Mr Burnham’s statement did not specifically include the meetings.
The Conservative leader said that “I don’t think his carefully worded answer will suffice”.
She included it in a list describing how he had “a busy few weeks tying himself in knots” - but never mentioned it again.
Mrs Badenoch then asked about Mr Burnham about him saying Russia interfered with the Brexit vote, when he would approve the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields, if he would cut benefits to boost defence spending and whether he would help business owners with tax.
The questions were too varied, too open and allowed him to defend his decisions but not have them interrogated.
It was like her team had rushed the questions at the last minute, choosing a bingo card of topics rather than zeroing in on an issue which could hurt the PM’s image.
The tactic was completely ineffective and meant Mr Burnham never had to get out of second gear.
Mrs Badenoch should go back to concentrating on one or two issues each session.
She is no longer facing the bumbling Sir Keir, and will need to be at her best to knock down the King of the North.
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