Is Keir Starmer the next Tony Blair?: PMQs compared

“Not having any substance behind the rhetoric. These are exactly the attacks you see on Keir Starmer now levelled on Tony Blair.”

Matt Chorley says he “never appreciated” how much Blair was accused of being “all over the place” in the run up to the 1997 election, in conversation with Times columnist Patrick Maguire.

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Both of them know exactly the attack line they want to land yeah Tony Blair’s can be summed up in one word weak he’s basically saying John Major is being pushed around and bullied by his party whereas Tony Blair has taken control of his John Major on the other hand is

Saying Tony Blair is being fundamentally mandati he’s lying and that he has more in common with and that he doesn’t really control his party and that he is not being honest about his political intentions and actually you could take that and superimpose it on the pmqs that

We have every week with Richie s and kiss dama and it would be all the better for it 97 poll showing Labour’s lead over the conservatives at 25 points as the Prime Minister a former Chancellor took over from a woman who slightly lost the plots uh Joel major weed wish you

Soon uh he was being um it was expected he was like to rule out in early elections even speculation uh in January 97 that he might uh go early and not hang on until May of course he did but here we go then we are going back uh to

Thursday January the 30th 1997 historic classic pmqs unpacked we’re heading to the comments now of course the speaker Betty boooy starting proceedings questions to the Prime Minister Mr Jerry Sutliff number one Madam speaker yeah this morning I presided at a meeting of the cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others

In addition to my duties in this house I shall be having further meetings later today so as the labor MP Jerry Sutliff uh as his traditional kicking off asking for the official engagement of the Prime Minister and uh interestingly John Major saying he’s uh presided over cabinet so

Cabinet on a Thursday not on a Tuesday it’s very interesting isn’t it well is that interesting well it’s interesting if you don’t find that interesting the rest of this is going to be really hard work uh well we we’ll come back to Joey sliff because I think um he might be one

Of the best of the rest in the back benches but this is what we’re really here for uh let’s kick off then uh this is uh Tony Blair question number one the Prime Minister John Major on this classic pmq Zant Mr Tony Blair Madam speaker a few weeks ago the

Prime Minister said that it was essential in the national interests that our options remained open on a single currency and that he expected conservative candidates to stand on that National Manifesto is that still his expectation of conservative candidates I think the right honorable gentleman before taking me to task on

This before taking me to task on this should perhaps talk to the scores of his own MPS that the right honorable gentleman the member for bethl green and stepanie said would oppose his steps as Peter Shaw for Minister as the right honorable gentleman said and I quote I

Think it’s an obligation to be honest with my own electorate the right honorable gentleman said but the right honorable gentleman wouldn’t understand that he he entered the house on an election address which demanded Britain’s withdrawal from the community even though even though Madam speaker he said later I wasn’t actually opposed to

Membership of the European Community I said within the closed doors of the labor party that I disagreed with the policy behind closed doors he says one thing in public another not the politics of conviction but convenience saying anything to get a vote and that is what he Advocates to his

Candidates okay let’s let’s let’s pause it there um interest so so gives us the background to this uh Patrick this is an argument about in the runup to the election in 97 would conservative candidates promise to remain open to Britain join the Y John Major wanted to keep his options

Open but a lot by this point a lot of conservative candidates were saying I’m a post you know we are the party of saving the pound exactly and you have Jimmy Goldsmith’s referendum party breathing down the necks of conservative MPS during this point I mean uh I can’t

Remember it’s on the front page or on the page around this time a Tor MP called George Gardner uh is deselected by his local Association and later joins Jimmy gold Smith’s re referendum party so while the the big policy question for John Major is do we join the Euro or not

The party political question is I will never be able to shepher Tory MPS into a position where they do that much like with the problem David Cameron later had with an EU referendum once that option was on the table lots of them scared of ukip or out of ideological conviction

Made the decision to P brexit despite what the the the Prime Minister was saying and it’s interesting John Major’s defense there is to employ the same sort of lines we now hear about k d you say one thing to the labor party you said this when you elected in 1983 now you’re

Saying another we can’t possibly trust you and what’s so interesting for historical perspective this this you know for for for younger listeners uh John Major there pointed out that Tony Blair when elected in 1983 he came in in the in the election which was a landl for Margaret Thatcher but uh Michael

Foot’s uh Manifesto uh opposed Britain’s membership of the European Community Tony Blair was elected on the promise of taking Britain out of Europe and given what we already know now about Tony Blair and he wanted to go into the single currency in the face of the

Remain campaign uh and so on uh and his defense for that was I I wasn’t actually opposed to membership of the European commission I said that within the said within the closed doors of the labor party I disagree with that policy D says about Jerry cor jery Corin anti-Semitism and it’s also very

Interesting to hear uh John Major site Peter Shaw now Peter Shaw more or less forgotten by mainstream politics was a very idiosyncratic uh Big labor figure in the 70s and 80s who were had a very sort of uh unique pro- Nat anti-eu sort of very distinctive politics it’s labor

Tradition that’s basically died um but it’s very interesting we’ll see a little bit more of this from John Major I’m sure to have party Grandes thrown at Tony Blair and also labor brexiteers on the left uh broadly speaking on the left of the labor party or on the sort of on

The old right of the labor party so to Tony Blair’s left too many directions here but basically to to have sort of not extremist but eccentric figures in the labor firmament in a very message disciplined time saying well hang on Tony you say this and Alice D Campell

Tells all your MPS to say this but look at all these people on The Fringe of the labor party saying other things and that’s something we still see to say too and what so interesting about this this exchange is that you know the perception that uh Tony Blair was the guy who could

Walk on water everyone was fully behind him you know didn’t had his own MPS fully behind him while John Major was this sort of slightly joke figure you know I think it’s fair to say you if you was if you just Analyze That exchange John Major came out on top of that one

Yeah completely um so let’s find out what happens remember only three questions from the leader of the opposition let’s go back to the House of Commons on this classic pmqs unpacked uh this is question two from Tony Blair Madam speaker if I can Madam speaker the labor party put

Its Manifesto to its membership and got 95% [Applause] support I doubt that he could put his Manifesto to his cabinet and get 95% support after all I was only asking him to agree with what he himself said a few weeks ago well if he can’t say that he now expects conservative candidates to

Do that has he still the vesage of authority and courage left to stand at that dispatch box and say now that at least he strongly urges and seeks to persuade conservative candidates to stand on his and the government’s position right honorable gentleman is just being plain silly is he

Telling is he telling this house that the right honorable gentleman The Honorable member for bov the right honorable gentleman for Chesterfield The Honorable gentleman for new are actually going to support his policy on Europe at the general election he raises it on this day of all days the

First two labor questioners on the order paper are both amongst the 50 who say we should not join a single currency he may ask he may ask his candidates to FIB to the electorate our candidates will set out their views we will follow we will follow the policy that the government

Have set out and people know our policy what he’s trying to do is to censor and smother what his party stands for it’s very feisty this I mean first of all I’m going to say um Patrick gu an almost incomprehensible question from Tony Blair I mean you so much assumed

Not I mean we’re so far away from clipping for social media I mean it is sort of a question but it’s a bit sort of it gets it’s quite In The Weeds on this question of whether or not conservative candidates will have to to sign up to the position of the Prime

Minister which is to at least be open to The single currency it’s not even to endorse single currency and Tony Blair is now asking him to say well if you cannot guarantee that your candidates will endorse your policy of being open to The single currency can you at least

Say you’ll tried to persuade them yeah uh which you know John Major uh doesn’t go on uh to do but what makes this quite such a feisty and satisfying exchange listening now as two people who listen to pmqs weak is that both of them know exactly the attack line they want to

Land yeah Tony Blair’s can be summed up in one word weak he’s basically saying John Major is being pushed around and bullied by his party whereas Tony Blair has taken control of his John Major on the other hand is saying Tony Blair is being fundamentally mandati he’s lying

And that he has more in common with and that he doesn’t really control his party and that he is not being honest about his political intentions and actually you could take that and superimpose it on the pmqs that we have every week with Rich S and K dama and it would be all

The better for it neither of them can quite work out what the attack is on on the other you know Richi sinak can’t work out is K St a a socialist danger who’s going to you know nationalize the nation and put us all into debt or is he someone who

Doesn’t have a plan you can’t not you can’t both have a plan to turn us into Venezuela and not have a plan and simly the to labor party can’t quite work out where it is on Richi sunak is he sort of a dangerous right winger is he someone

Who doesn’t break keep his promises is he is he weak and they haven’t quite sort of landed on that no no no exactly and also conversely neither have number 10 yeah on K dama but it just goes to show and and that is something Tony Blair himself said that’s how Tony Blair

Used pmqs to define and test out attack lines against his Rivals and that’s the one purpose it served but I don’t think either K or Rich Sak have perfected that one word you know Tony Blair would say major was weak William hag was good on jokes but terrible on substance etc etc

Okay well here we go this is the last exchange from the front benches anyway uh this is question number three on classic pmqs unpacked we go back to the comments question three from Tony Blair I asked him two questions I said as he himself said a few weeks ago

Does he expect them to stand on the same Manifesto I answer it you yes I then asked him will he at least seek to persuade people to stand on the same Manifesto I answer yes he is So Weak and Powerless he can’t even say I me is it not he

Cannot he cannot he cannot even get to that oh yes is it not exp order order come toward extraordinary isn’t it extraordinary that the prime minist of our country can’t even urge his party to support his own position yeah weak weak [Applause] weak weak and I tell him that is the reason

His weak and his failure of leadership are the reason his government is the incompetent mess it is whenever whenever the right honorable gentleman gets abusive we know he’s losing we know he’s losing if he is concerned about strength will he today sack The Honorable member for older who yesterday contradicted what he said

About tax Michael me will he today sack the deputy chief whip of the labor party who yesterday contradicted what it was said about tax all he does is Heckle and waft his arms around in a hopeless gesture yes or no will he sack them or not his policy they are members of his

Shadow cabinet they have denied his policy we have set out consistently what our policy is I have said it is important to keep the options all of the options open all of the options open The Honorable gentlemen sneers I’m in his words not [Applause] mine keep all of the options open he has

Followed in grandmother’s Footsteps in following policy after policy of ours he says we should keep the options open we keep the options open but his policy apparently means something quite different because he dare not admit what his policy is and it all uh it all uh kicks off a

Bit so did the reason we’ve chosen this pmqs is because it’s the week week week week one it turns out there’s a fourth week that that often gets cut out of the uh of the sound bite so it’s famous for that and you know it’s a defining moment

Where Tony Blair you know tied up John Major and put a bow on it actually this is more evenly uh um balanced John Major definitely gives us good his he gets that’s certainly true and Tony Blair doesn’t really have any rejoiner uh to any of the questions I mean let’s zero

In on the mention of Michael mea who was a shadow cabinet minister uh who would have been destined for the cabinet but in 1997 or late 1996 I can’t remember which around around the time uh of uh this pmq indeed the day before Michael Mee said look Gordon Brown said we’re

Not going to raise taxes on personal income there certainly lots of other taxes we can raise Michael Meer was then not put in the in the cabinet right that that show you that the attacks John Major was making did wound Tony Blair this is exactly the stuff Tony Blair and

Gordon Brown worried about the things that uh U John Major is highlighting here so this idea that you know Tony Blair was running rings around John Major all the time uh isn’t necessarily true and it it maybe goes to show how you know if you read some of the

Coverage from the uh from the time it’s easy to laugh at in hindsight because it’s all sort of are the polls wrong you know will the people who say they don’t no return to the Tories Tony Blair and aliser Campbell and others were terrified and didn’t really believe that

They could win the sort of uh landslide that was projected and you can but you can sort of understand listening to the day-to-day politics here John Maia has a coherent and wounding attack on the labor party here do you know what grandmother’s footsteps are the isn’t it

Seems to be like an old G like a children’s game is it not where you stand on the if you’re a kid and you stand on the feet of your parent oh when you do that yeah I don’t know I’m just guessing there’s it’s a game where one person’s grandmother or grandfather and

They stand with their back to the class everyone else has to sneak up on them and try and touch them the grandparent could turn around that’s a bit like um what’s the time Mr Wolf isn’t it but I don’t know what he means by he’s followed in grandmother’s footsteps but

Again in following policy after policy of ours and again this the parallels with today where the toys accused labor of nicking their policies labor accus the Tories of Nick policies uh and so but again you know going right to the heart of of leadership and maybe I

Suppose a reminded that actually even if if wishi sunat was doing very well at pmqs um it might not actually make any difference to the overall outcome of the uh welled William hay won countless sessions of pmqs and at the end of that Parliament the bank of England was still

Independent and Britain still had a national minimum wage because if you win at pmqs it doesn’t necessarily mean you win an election yeah and actually you know maybe maybe because over the next couple of weeks there isn’t um pmq so maybe we can revisit a William ha Tony

Blair one to see how well he did uh but let’s do the best of the rest then as we always do with pmq on Pat Uh no pmqs this week because Richie sunak K St and the rest of them they’re all on recess working hard in their constituencies I’m

Sure um Henry zman has just been in touch by the way to say he used to play Grandma’s Footsteps in the playground well there we are maybe it’s a London thing he says that’s BBC’s Henry Z listening to times radio morning Henry uh right uh let’s um so we we we’re do

In Classic pmqs this is from uh Thursday January 30th 1997 we’ve had the key exchanges from Tony Blair and uh and John Major let’s go now to a backbench question I don’t know this got the guys’s first name is ashp what’s his name uh David ashp let’s go to the

Comments David ashp has my right honorable friend seen the statement order order order order if there if anyone has been abusive they will indicate it to me order order order I think there are a lot of members this house that have got a good deal of pre-election

Tension let us get on with question time there are members I want to call ask me talkative speaker not a new thing my right honorable friend has undoubtedly seen the statement of the chairman of toot toote does my right honorable friend not agree that toote came to this country because this

My honorable right honorable friend’s uh policies provided the most favorable climate for companies such as Toyota to have a Gateway into Europe does not his statement show that it is important that we should maintain that Gateway and important that we should maintain our foot in Europe so that uh we get uh

Increased uh uh uh investment job major we intend to maintain we intend to maintain our voice in Europe there should be absolutely no doubt about that what we do not intend to do is to slavishly follow whatever might Happ happen to be the favored policy of some European governments at

Any at any particular point in time we are not going to follow policies that would be damaging to British interests we are not going to sign social chapters the deputy leaders back here scoffing as usual I will tell the deputy leader of the labor party one signature on the social

Chapter will mean half a million signatures on the doll so we are that was a question the from David Ashby the conservative MP for Northwest leerer now of course represented by one andreww Andrew Brion uh so lucky them um now the reason this this qu this exchange is so interesting

Is because it’s 1997 it would be 20 years before Britain or a bit less before Britain would vote to leave the EU but you can see the seeds being swn then this debate about Britain’s place in Europe Toyota uh it was on the front of the front of the times that day the

The boss of Toyota saying Britain must join The single currency you join the Euro or risk losing Japanese investment we had then had all those arguments again in the run up to the Nissan and Sunderland and it’s this sort of argument that’s rehearsed time and time again

And you see the outsized role of the manufacturing industry particularly car manufacturers in determining how politicians talk about and conceive of Britain’s relationship with Europe remember too David Davis in 2017 saying don’t worry all of the German car manufacturers will be knocking Angela Mer’s merkel’s door and then we’ll get a

Fantastic deal and also you can understand if if you’re a euroskeptic listening to this and you hear Nigel Ashby there saying uh you know we need to have the most favorable Possible Trading relationship with Europe you read the front page of the swollowing days times chairman of Tor saying look

It would be a terrible idea if Briton didn’t join the Euro and would really jeopardize our presence here and you see look the car British car industry isn’t what it was but there’s a lot of inward investment into the British car industry at the moment you can understand why

Euros Skeptics reading that would say well hang on we’ve had all of these doomsaying predictions before about not joining the Euro about leaving the EU about leaving the single Market you know it happens again and again and again look we still got a industry in this country so it’s interesting tracing some

Of these arguments and the apocalyptic predictions not having come to pass having come to pass yeah absolutely well let’s go back to the house of Comm said classic pmqs unpacked we’re going to labor MP Jerry Sutcliff speaker I wonder if the prime minister is aware of the reports today

That the National Health Service is in near collapse in the northwest of England oh and everywhere else red shortages people waiting on choies and could I also say to him they seen crisis in Bradford as well 289 operation SS canel in the last quarter a much needed accident emergency unit we were promised

But not delivered after so many years and we have the outrage of two new mix sex WS two new mix sex WS that the Prime Minister said would not happen isn’t the truth there’s two Health Services like there’s two Tory parties a Health Service a real Health Service that’s

Near collapsed and a fantasy Health Service that the Prime Minister talks about in The Press well the tell us about fantasy land says Dennis skin The Honorable gentleman wait a moment you’ll hear what I have to say about it the honorable gentleman referred to the Northwest in

His question he might perhaps have begun by acknowledging the brand new 2.9 Million extension to the A&E department at the Royal Liverpool hospital opened just a year or so ago which makes it one of the finest A&E hospitals Department in the country he shakes his head he

Doesn’t think it’s one of the finest I do Madam speaker I think it’s one of the the demand for the National Health Service is rising and so and so is the capacity to meet that demand which is why more patients are being treated every health authority has made its own

Plan for dealing with the growth of demand we’re seeing this year and my right honorable friend has already made additional sums available to deal with that demand so uh the state of the NHS a prime minister 2 points 25 points behind in the polls being lambasted about the

State of the NHS the echo from the front of the the times today just one in four people say the is working um uh I’m not sure is an MP for Bradford South might be that excited about the fact that Liverpool’s had a new hospital well he talks about the Royal Liverpool Hospital

Which is currently being the version of it John Major is talking about is literally as we speak being demolished so yeah the uh the iconic concrete Royal Liverpool Hospital uh is uh is being torn down so it’s no longer one of the finest it’s no longer well the new one

Uh I’ve never been but is uh every friend of mine who’s an appointment there says It’s amazing uh amazing new facility but the version John Major is talking about is literally being knocked down as we speak so uh Jerry sliff might have begun by acknowledging the brand

New extension but he wouldn’t get very far uh but it is very it’s fascinating right and this tells the same story that the labor party are sort of responding to now which is public services a state or perceived to be a state of near total collapse um and that is basically what

Voters are reacting to yeah no it’s um uh and just the echo through time we think everything is brand new and the arguments about uh saying one thing in private and saying one thing in public or the state of the NHS or um you know political infighting oh it’s all

Unprecedented it’s not unprecedented everything’s happened before right let’s round off then uh with a final question from Peter Botley one of the few people still in mp uh after all this time he’s now the father of the house senior labor officials just got in touch to say Jerry

Sliff is a legend by the way so there you we are they’re all listening uh so uh Peter bottomly conservative MP asking a question question to prime minister John majer pet B would my right honorable friend agree that one shouldn’t unfairly or even fairly always go back to what people put in their

Election addresses in the 1980s might want to look at what they put in their election addresses at the last election then wonder how many of those policies they’ve reversed in The Last 5 Years well I think uh Madam speaker it is uh it is possible possible possible the fact it’s it I’m

Prepared to offer a prize to anyone who can find five policies that the right honorable gentleman has been consistent on there we are there’s his there’s his last Zinger a prize to anyone who can find five policies on which Tony Blair has been consistent it’s amazing actually that I didn’t think I’d fully

Appreciated just how much in that period and the run up to 97 election that Blair was accused of being all over the place and being inconsistent um saying one thing here and one thing there well and the echo therefore The Echoes would one thing there one one thing here one thing there

Inexperienced not having any substance behind the rhetoric it is exactly the attacks you hear see on K sta now leveled at Tony Blair and even some labor people will draw the unable comparison they’ll say look Tony knew exactly what he wanted to do he had he was so intensely political I even if

That’s true even if the idea that K St is less political than Tony Blair is true didn’t do Tony Blair much good at this point in the Electoral cycle nobody was saying certainly uh in in bit in bits of the mainstream press were not saying Tony Blair is you know such a a

Radical and interesting thinker you know beyond sort of will Hutton in in in the Observer or whatever most people were saying exactly the same things that are now being said about kiss Dharma yeah no it’s absolutely fasc loads of you have been getting in touch uh Mike says Tony

Blair did the Hopey changy thing to a tea and that’s worth more than 100 well-crafted parli mening questions in 1997 the country were done with the toyss they are done with them now out of ideas out of Road soon to be out of office is interesting that I suppose

Partly because it was about the debating CH it feels more like a thing that we are peering in on the sort of argument being played out exactly than it’s a dialogue in a way that it’s not just two people so each each question is isn’t like you know restating the position and

So it could all be clipped up for social media it’s a debate happening in the House of Commons you know the CLD of debate aimed at each other and their their back benches in which we’re sort of peering in on it which makes a slightly difference um H has got a D

Saying I assume not from steps uh loving the 1997 look back I was three years old then thank you for that that’s very good um and uh Sarah says we played Grand mother’s Footsteps in Yorkshire too the same game in Wales was apparently called London which if anything Sarah has

Confus me uh even more uh that was classic pmqs unpacked uh e