At PMQs Rayner just nicely exposed Johnson’s incompetence
At Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) on Wednesday 16 September, Boris Johnson was out of his depth for the second time this week after another Labour frontbencher skewered him.
Boris Johnson: mauled and mauled again
Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner was standing in for Starmer who was in self-isolation due to one of his children having coronavirus (Covid-19) symptoms. His child’s test thankfully came back negative just before PMQs began. So, Rayner was at the despatch box. And the PM seemed out of his depth for the second time this week, after shadow energy secretary Ed Miliband mauled him on Monday 14 September.
Wales Online wrote that:
Johnson was rendered a laughing stock by former Labour leader Ed Miliband…
Mr Miliband exposed the Prime Minister’s inability to answer questions about his own plans
It also noted that:
Over the course of the speech an increasing[ly] uncomfortable and dishevelled looking Prime Minister sank lower and lower in his seat, occasionally shaking his head as he was repeatedly taunted by Mr Miliband.
Rayner: channelling Corbyn at PMQs?
Rayner took an almost Jeremy Corbyn approach to PMQs. She opened with a “message that I received from a man called Keir”. This was similar to the way Corbyn used to open PMQs with questions directly from members of the public. Rayner said:
Keir wasn’t able to go to work today… because his family had to wait for their coronavirus test results… Keir was able to do the right thing, and self-isolate, and work from home. But other people aren’t in this position… many of them are the very people who are getting us through this crisis. Like the care workers that I used to work alongside… The prime minister once earned £2,300 an hour. So can the prime minister tell us what is the average hourly rate of a care worker in this country?
Bluster and blundering
Johnson rather limply blundered his way through some a half-baked response. He noted that:
I am proud that it is this government that has instituted the national living wage to ensure that every worker in this country… is paid substantially more
But he failed to say what the average hourly rate of a care worker was. And Rayner didn’t let him off the hook. She bounced it back to him again, saying:
The whole country… would have seen that the prime minister doesn’t know how much a care worker earns… The shameful fact is that the average wage in social care is barely more than £8 an hour, and half of our social care workers earn less than the real living wage.
She continued to slam Johnson throughout. She asked about social care funding; what was going on with the UK’s chaotic coronavirus testing in care homes, and what the situation was with the average number of overall tests per day. Johnson, naturally, fumbled around with his answers – showing once more that when under pressure, he collapses.
What a show up
Rayner, like Miliband, was incisive and to the point. They both refused to let an increasingly weak Johnson off the hook. The PM is looking more and more incapable of deflecting criticism and holding himself up to scrutiny; unsurprisingly so.
But Rayner and Miliband have also prompted another question: will the previously mediocre Starmer now up his game? Because two of his frontbenchers showed him and the PM up this week.
Featured image via the Telegraph – YouTube
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The opposition has arrived!! At last!!
Err no sorry she has been all but invisible since her election , the biggest disappointment one could never have expected .
Try Laura Pidcock as a Leader or for sure a Deputy leader far superior to sham pretender to be a lefty Rayner
If Johnson had hoped to humble and humiliate with his standard routine of bluster, bragging and bullying he was caught seriously off-guard by the ferocity of his eloquent and articulate opponent, who displayed no nervous reservation despite her rawness at the despatch box. Finally the opposition asking real questions that put the PM on the spot with ‘shame on you’ regularity instead of the pathetic, ‘who’s been a naughty boy then,’ ignored whining of the failed Labour Leader. My message to the Captain of Capitulation: pull another sickie Starmer and let the let our fearless and righteous Rayner ‘Labour Lioness’ roar.
Without the baying mob behind him to drown out the opposition Johnson’s inadequacy is on show to everyone.
On the second or third PMQ after Parliament reconvened, following one two PMQs where Mr Starmer had exposed the PM’s incompetence, Matt Hancock appeared on the front bench to heckle Starmer. However, this was so pathetic that the Speaker immediately rebuked Hancock. Since then Johnson has been on his own – waffling. However, the Tories in England still out poll Labour and in the so called ‘red wall seats’.
Labour in Scotland has been reduced to a single quasi-Tory MP and shows no sign of reviving. Half of its dwindling group of supporters support independence, yet Labour in Scotland (supported by Starmer) continues to claim there is no demand for a second referendum and, even if there was we would refuse it. Real democrats!
Labour in England faces a similar prospect unless they reach out to a wider section of the population, especially those who have been impoverished by successive governments – including Blair’s and Brown’s – since 1979.
The REAL leader of the Labour Party.
Step aside Mister Starmer. Today you have more than met your match.
The only real Leader of the REAL Socialist Labour party was Corbyn !
I was refering to the present bunch of Tory lites and Onlysofarcialists.
apologies ,was not clear from your comment , agreed .
What should have been had Corbyn not been undermined , by Stammer and Co , perhaps many more folks would be alive right now as at least this murderous CV19 loving Govt wouldn’t be in power .
Indeed. JC and JMac would have had it beat long since.
Too little too late for me I’m afraid, Labour have lost our votes in my family and now we have no party representing us or our interests, we have no option other than not vote for any party.
By voting for any of them you are legitimising their system and their corrupt thieving cheating system.
JC was the first Labour leader to really give us hope, hope of change, hope of care and health and hope for our children. This of course has no part in the new-con facist right wing nutters agenda so it was prevented by their usual play book, lies, deceit and use of their friends in MSM who blindly preach time and time again left bad right good. Just look at Brexit, look at what we were told, look at the lies from the leavers and look at how insignificant it all seems now? Just as they lied about Brexit they lie about this awful virus, they do not ever take responsibility for anything, crap testing? Lockdown too late? Transferring elderly from hospital to care homes causing mass transfer of the virus to those who have the least chance of surviving it!!!!!!!!??? Sorry for rant but we feel angry let down and have no future unless its more of the same. Time to get out of dodge me thinks
The last paragraph of this article sums it up. “Will the previously mediocre Starmer now up his game” Lets hope so, there are enough open goals.
He’ll never change. He’s an establishment lovey.
A loyal shyster who talks about his track record (of which I’ve never seen any evidence) as a human rights lawyer whilst thrashing out with the head of MI6 just how far they could “legally” go in The Snoopers Charter. Who failed to prosecute Saville twice. Or any of the killer cops who gunned down Jean Charles de Menezes including the now head of The Met who ordered his assassination. (Fair plays he got the then Commish. on Health and Safety violations and slapped a tidy fine on his office).
And lets not forget his “unequivical support for Zionism”. He’s all in favour of the total eradication of the indigenous population of Palestine then.
Nope. He’s just a wannabe never will be Stalin in my eyes.
I must admit. I once had a soft spot for Ang. but her total silence of MiLord Statistics (as me old Ma. and lifelong Labour supporter as was calls him) outrageous sacking of RLB lost her my respect. Yesterday went a little way to get it back, and I do think of the current bunch, she is the most likely to win back the Red Wall. Being a Northern lass and all. That’s if she gets her stomping boots on and keeps giving Bozo a good kicking.