Even with Labour’s comfortable lead in the polls, Sir Keir Starmer has struggled since the turn of the year to make any impact at Prime Minister’s Questions.
But today he hit a groove. Helped in no small part by the dispiriting inflation figures published by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) this morning which showed that the CPI rate had not gone down at all in a month despite all the economic pain.
That on top of mortgage interest rates hitting six percent, there was a large target which even Starmer could not miss.
Sure enough his line about the “Tory mortgage penalty” hit home.
All Rishi Sunak’s backbenchers knew it, not least because they had been making a similar complaint for weeks.
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The story of police officer James from Selby (which rather helpfully has a by-election) who is having to sell up and downsize forcing his kids to share a room is one which will ring true for many people around the country going through similar experiences.
For once Sunak’s response was less than satisfactory.
It boiled down to that “this is a global crisis” and the problem was “three times higher when we took over from Labour”.
The difficulty with these lines is that nobody really cares about what the country was like 13 years ago and nobody really cares what is happening in other countries when they want their problems sorted out here.
The line of attack was that “Labour doesn’t have a plan” and the few policies it does have (more borrowing, no British supplied oil and gas) are ruinous was more effective but not a lot more.
Again, this far out from an election voters are not as worried about what a future government may do as opposed to what this one is doing.
It took veteran Brexiteer MP and former Trade Secretary Dr Liam Fox to provide the treatment needed.
Earlier this week, the good doctor helped a man who fainted at the ConservativeHome summer party in Westminster just before Foreign Secretary James Clevery was due to speak.
In PMQs he offered some sage advice to help revive the Prime Minister – “it is time to start talking Britain up”.
Dr Fox’s question followed the usual sour contribution from SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn who vainly demanded the Prime Minister admit that it was Brexit which has caused the economic woes.
But in truth it was Brexit that is providing the solution according to Fox.
“Since 2016 (the year of the EU refrendum) cumulative growth in Italy has been four percent, in Germany has been 5.5 percent, in the UK has been 6.8 percent.
“In May last year British exports to the EU were not just the highest since Brexit but since records began.
“The UK had the highest growth in any G7 country in 2021 and 2022. The eurozone is currently in recession, we are not.
“Is it not time we heard more good news talking Britain up.”
Dr Fox has a point.
There are many successes and causes for optimism to point to in the UK which provide light at the end of the tunnel of the economic misery.
Just accepting that everying is miserable is not going to have people rushing out to vote Tory (even Tory members are not sure they will do that currently).
The revelations from Chris Hayward, policy chairman of the City of London Corporation, underlined that even in tough times Brexit is delivering economic gains, thousands of new jobs and billions in extra investement.
The Prime Minister needs to tell the positive story of how things are already turning around thanks to his support of leaving the EU and how the good times are coming as a result.
That way he will stand a better chance of pulling off that miracle election victory next year thata few Conservative MPs still think may be achievable.
