Keir Starmer is facing demands to apologise to the Commons Speaker over his extraordinary PMQs temper tantrum.
The premier confronted Lindsay Hoyle in the chamber after being reminded during yesterday’s session that he was the one facing questions – not the Leader of the Opposition.
Sir Keir strode up to Sir Lindsay following the clashes, with witnesses saying he was ‘fuming’ and even struck the side of the Speaker’s chair.
However, Sir Lindsay has repeatedly given the same warning to PMs including Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak – to Sir Keir’s benefit when he was Opposition leader.
In June 2020 Sir Keir was grilling Mr Johnson in the Commons when he moaned: ‘This is turning into Opposition questions. If the Prime Minister wants to swap places, I’m very happy to do it, to do it now.’
Allies of the Speaker have pointed out that he regularly gets emails from members of the public complaining that the premier constantly dodges questions at PMQs.
Shadow Commons leader Jesse Norman raised the episode at Business Questions in the House this morning.
As Sir Lindsay watched on stony-faced, Mr Norman said of 24 responses given by the PM to Kemi Badenoch in recent weeks, 23 had ‘ignored the question and changed the subject’.
‘Yesterday we even saw the PM hectoring you and on live television just for doing your job,’ he said.
‘That is a shameful record, for which the PM should write to you and therefore by implication to this House and apologise.’
Mr Norman said the behaviour ‘is contemptuous of you, of the Leader of the Opposition, and of us all as MPs’.
Asked about the incident today, the PM’s spokesman insisted he had ‘addressed all the questions that were put to him yesterday’.
The spokesman confirmed Sir Keir still has confidence in the Speaker.
Sir Lindsay interrupted the exchanges with Mrs Badenoch yesterday to say: ‘Prime Minister, it’s Prime Minister’s Questions. We’ve got to concentrate.’
Following the heated clashes, the PM was leaving the chamber when he was seen to approach Sir Lindsay’s chair.
One MP who witnessed the scene at close quarters said Sir Keir was clearly incensed at the Speaker.
‘He was fuming with Lindsay,’ they told the Daily Mail.
It was the third occasion in recent weeks in which Sir Lindsay has had to intervene to remind Sir Keir that he is supposed to be answering questions.
The Speaker later issued a statement saying that he occasionally had to remind PMs of the ‘rules of engagement’ in the chamber.
He added, pointedly, that the point had been made to No10 officials ‘on several occasions recently’ following similar interventions on previous weeks.
A spokeswoman for the Speaker’s Office said yesterday: ‘The Speaker is not responsible for the questions asked by Members or the answers given by Ministers.
‘Questions to Ministers should relate to matters for which they are officially responsible. Equally, answers should be confined to the points contained in the question.
‘Every so often the Speaker has to remind Prime Ministers – and Ministers – of the rules of engagement in the Chamber.
‘The Speaker has made this point to officials at No10 on several occasions recently as well.’
