Robert Hutton

3 days ago | thecritic.co.uk | Robert Hutton

Keir Starmer’s impersonation of normalcy is less than convincing Waiting in the wings as he prepared to face Angela Rayner, Mel Stride looked nervous. Keir Starmer was abroad again, and so the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer (there’s no shame if you didn’t know) was the latest member of Kemi Badenoch’s front bench to be served up at Deputy Prime Minister’s Questions. As he prepared for his gladiatorial tussle with Angela Rayner, he fiddled with his phone and shifted from foot to foot.

4 days ago | thecritic.co.uk | Robert Hutton

The sketch is now in effect. PLEASE DO NOT VIOLATE IT! How did you mark Dan Hannan Day? Big party, or quietly with close family? Tuesday was, for those blissfully unaware, the day identified by Conservatism’s Greatest Intellectual™ for an essay he wrote in the days before the 2016 referendum, setting out how Britain would mark its departure from the European Union each year with early evening fireworks and a sense of wonder about how easy Brexit had turned out to be.

5 days ago | thecritic.co.uk | Robert Hutton

“Well,” began the Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, on being asked about whether America’s bunker-busting bombing mission against Iran was strictly, y’know, legal. “We weren’t involved.”OK, replied the man from the BBC. But did we, a nuclear power with a seat on the UN Security Council, have a view on whether countries can just bomb other countries? “We weren’t involved,” Lammy replied. He suggested they try asking the Americans: “You can get the ambassador online.”This wasn’t quite doing the trick.

1 week ago | thecritic.co.uk | Robert Hutton

The assisted dying debate had the incongruous air of a garden party Keir Starmer emerged from the Aye lobby, having voted in favour of the assisted dying bill, and made his way over to the opposition benches, to speak to Plaid Cymru’s Liz Saville Roberts. Last month he was uncharacteristically rude to her at PMQs, saying she “talks rubbish”. He’d already apologised in the chamber, but he seemed to be doing so again, in person.

1 week ago | thecritic.co.uk | Robert Hutton

It was Chris Philp’s big moment, and he was nowhere to be seen. With Keir Starmer away at the G7, Wednesday was deputy PMQs, with Angela Rayner standing in for the prime minister. Kemi Badenoch has refused to appoint a deputy, preferring a strategy of letting anyone who isn’t Robert Jenrick stand in for her. This time it was the shadow home secretary’s turn. But where was he? With three minutes to go, there was no sign of him. This was cutting it a little fine. Had he forgotten?