The Prime Minister’s penchant for petty personal putdowns is not a model we should try to match

“I think in the end he just looked bad. He apologised but I think he knew he had to”

Liz Saville Roberts, Plaid Cymru’s Westminster leader had been with me on the radio and talked about the Prime Minister’s ‘rudeness’ when in PMQs he had countered her question if he had any firm beliefs by saying

“Yes one, that she talks rubbish” – cue whoops of laughter from the kids on the front bench.

In an ad break during the show Cross Question, with Iain Dale we all discussed the fact that there is a definite line in political discourse which if you cross it you start losing any goodwill that you have accrued simply by being rude or obnoxious.

The Bubble narrative has been until recently that Kemi Badenoch is bad at PMQs. I’ve had occasion on this site to suggest that even if she isn’t as masterful as a Blair or Hague it is Keir Starmer, as Prime Minister, who’s evidentially bad at it.

This week we another example of the petty playground response that Starmer favours. When questioned about the choices he’s made in Government, he went with:

“The worst choice her party made was to make her leader”

It’s like watching a sixth former finding the fourth form audience loving his sassy quips end tries to get edgier each week, whilst every adult in earshot just sighs with disappointment.  He could have said  “Yah, boo, sucks to you” and he’d have created the same impression.

He knows his government is struggling, I know he is regretting some early decisions, and he has the sort of flexible relationship with the truth that he often accused Boris Johnson of having – and yet he can deliver that line with such a ‘very pleased with myself’ smirk. It’s actually unedifying to watch whoever you support.

However he also gleefully revealed that in an episode of Matt Forde’s Political Party – part stage show part podcast, Kemi had recently said she sometimes ‘rehearsed her outrage’ for PMQs.

Ok, my first thought was ‘find me a leader that doesn’t…including Keir” but then I got wrapped up in an old habit a lot of political Comms types have – writing and rehearsing a good comeback.  I went with:

“I can assure the honourable gentleman my anger is genuine when the public see how little he needs to rehearse, but loves to repeat, his self-satisfied delusions each week”

Not bad. I reckon that would have popped him back in his box.

And then the train of thought came to a screeching halt. I remembered the discussion at LBC.

‘Stop! This is exactly the problem’

We should be expending all our efforts on the language for the ideas and arguments that will ultimately defeat our opponents and convince the public rather than bother trying to craft or even match a school boy experimenting with a bully pulpit. There’s nothing we should be matching this Government on.

In discourse across many platforms we’ve all either become immune, or we’ve normalised applause for the “Well you’re an idiot!” school of political rhetoric.

Don’t get me wrong, I like a bit of ‘blood on the carpet’ by twelve thirty on a Wednesday and actually so do the public whatever Mr or Madam Speakers have said over the years though It’s true they dislike the braying backbenches howling or cheering like some mad choir. Playing the ball not the man is not some form of weakness or woke politeness. I just think it’s better tactics.

Fire and brimstone is great but should be about Government choices and weakness. The soundbite should be about exposing any of the multiple flaws in their whole approach. Opposition is about finding opportunities to both hold Government and other parties to account, whilst simultaneously defining what’s unique about you, and your party.

For better or worse we know the “renewal” of the party isn’t going to be about getting any ‘quick and easy’ answers, frustrating though I know some members and MPs are finding the wait. So what other USPs can be carved out, now?

In a field where Reform like to go in ‘studs up’ and where the Lib Dems are saying all sorts, as long as the leader’s on a log flume, or doing cartwheels on a kayak, there is a space to match Labour’s insistence on clinging desperately to boasts that are evidentially untrue and be the obvious firm, calm and honest option in the room. Badenoch has made much of this recently –

It’s the ‘you might not want to hear what I have to say, but you’ll always know it’s the truth’ pitch.

Also I’m not just talking about PMQs even though that’s where I started but a wider appeal across all Conservative communications.

I’ve never been convinced that it helps to call uber-Reform/UKIP/Brexit Party supporters “swivel-eyed-loons”, or the left screaming “Gammon”, or worse “Fascist” at anybody to the right of Owen Jones. Remainers made no friends for a decade of oh-so-superior branding of Brexit voters as ‘thick’. I’m pretty bored of “museli-eating-Guardianista” is a bon-mot to be honest.

Whether they like it or not the Conservatives have been put firmly back in the business of having to persuade people to trust them again, to feel they have credible answers to fiendishly complex questions and solutions that might make everyone’s lives better. Therefore there’s room for a pitch that is something like

“We won’t give you snake oil, we won’t respond in kind to the petty insults of others, but we will knock down their policy platform brick by brick and all the while offer instead hope, with credible, thought through solutions for our future” – something like that, anyway.

Where name calling really works is when you rebrand their big ideas with names they won’t like. Labour did it to great effect with the ‘Spare-room subsidy’ or as everybody ended up calling it: the bedroom tax.

I’d like the problematic Employment Right’s Bill – to be called the Bill for Unemployment. Every. Time. It’s. Mentioned. It describes effortlessly what the bill will really do.

The Tories have certainly made a start on this. The National Insurance employer contribution appears in almost all Conservative rhetoric as the Jobs Tax. VAT on school fees, should be the aspiration tax, the inheritance tax changes for farmers are referred to as a tax on family businesses. The Chagos surrender worked well but as has been discussed by others on this site, deals branded betrayals and surrenders are a mixed bag in terms of the public.

The line form Mel Stride about the “the first tax cuts for which this Chancellor has been responsible are in Mauritius” is exactly what I’m suggesting works. It’s not about her but her actions, and it’s good satire. Much better, frankly than “Rachel from accounts”.

This not about being nice to people, it’s about being tactical. Nor is it ‘wet’ or naïve. Never mistake politeness for weakness or someone not sure of their case. Over the years a back bench Jacob Rees-Mogg had a reputation for staying calm in the face of screaming insults, and bravely made his case in calm tones. He flipped in government to some rather withering personal sleights and found people rather missed the former and less the latter.

Lord Finkelstein has the patience of a saint when engaging with the Angry-Lefties-of-Twitter but often lands his own point more powerfully because of it. I’ve mentioned Tim Montgomerie founder of this site, always tries to conduct an argument in the same manner. Andrew Gilligan’s excellent column about how Tony Blair wore down opponents without using a personally toned full bore character assassination is still well worth re-reading.

The Conservatives need to sow doubt about others, whilst rebuilding public trust in the party.

Seems to me this Government’s bizarre penchant for saying things you can’t trust is rich soil to sow those seeds, and building trust can often be achieved not by calling someone a liar but pointing out exactly how the other team are playing fast and lose with the truth.

Team Labour can enjoy thinking up new insults for people all they wish, or laugh when the boss does it, but I’ll be much happier to see us clinically dismantle their ideas, and policies not their characters.

Besides with a PM that bruises as easily as he does, it’s probably kinder to Keir.

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