Kemi Badenoch called for a “strong woman” to replace Sir Keir Starmer as Prime Minister after repeated refusals to answer whether he spoke to Lord Peter Mandelson before appointing him as ambassador to the US.
Badenoch attacked Starmer for deflecting questions about Mandelson, even as the Prime Minister’s spokesman confirmed last week that it was the PM’s advisers who put questions to the disgraced politician before his appointment.
The opposition leader then referenced former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner’s comments on Tuesday night that Labour was “running out of time”.
“His former deputy has just fired the starting gun on the race to replace him,” Badenoch said.
“I’ll tell him one thing, she and I both agree that this weak man should be replaced by a strong woman.”
Starmer said an independent adviser had found that the full process around Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador was followed and that it was a “question of my judgment” for appointing Mandelson despite being informed of his history of links to Jeffrey Epstein.
The Prime Minister instead turned to attack the Conservatives on shadow justice secretary Nick Timothy’s comment that a Muslim prayer gathering in Trafalgar Square represented a form of “domination”.
He said the Tories had a “problem with Muslims”. A Tory official said Timothy’s comments related to “exclusion” between men and women in a public space.
Starmer also hit out at the Tory leader for her response to President Trump’s war in Iran. Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker of the House of Commons, appeared to condemn the Prime Minister for his evasive answers.
“I’m not responsible for the answers, but it’s certainly not opposition questions,” he said.
Starmer headwinds
The attacks on Starmer around Mandelson’s appointment, his electoral unpopularity and government U-turns set the scene for a difficult run-up to local elections in May.
Rayner suggested immigration reforms around extending the waiting time for settled status in the UK was “un-British”. A Labour spokesman said the government would respond to a consultation in “due course”.
Responding to Rayner’s swipes at the leadership and Labour’s failures in government, the spokesman said: “The Prime Minister shares an impatience to deliver the change people voted for.
“We’re making progress with restoring stability to the economy, cutting NHS waiting lists, and next month we will begin lifting half a million children out of poverty.”
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