This time it’s personal: UK’s Sunak and Starmer ramp up the attacks as election looms

LONDON — And to think these two were meant to be the grown-ups.

After pitching themselves as calming forces after years of chaos in their respective parties, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour Leader Keir Starmer are taking the gloves off in a crucial election year.

Nowhere is this increased testiness more evident than in the weekly bout of Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons — which is fast descending into a sweary slanging match between two leaders usually dismissed as bloodless technocrats.

“[Sunak and Starmer] often allude to the fact that they are cooperative on matters of national security,” said John Crace, parliamentary sketch writer at the Guardian, and a weary weekly observer of the bout. “But then they’re like a couple of children let loose on each other at PMQs.”

Party insiders agreed exchanges between the pair have grown more personal in recent months, as the stakes are raised in an election year.

During recent debates, Starmer has accused Sunak of “not getting Britain” due to his vast personal wealth. He’s quipped that Sunak’s policies are a “shitshow,” and nicknamed him “Captain Hindsight.”

At the same time, Sunak has doubled down on a suggestion the Labour leader is a “terrorist sympathizer.” Riffing on Starmer’s time as a top human rights lawyer, Sunak quipped: “When I see a group chanting ‘jihad’ on our streets, I ban them. He invoices them!”

During one testy exchange, Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle even attempted to quieten jeering MPs from both sides by offering to send them back to parliament’s tea room. No such luck.

It’s getting nasty 

While the rise in personal jibes is striking, Sunak and Starmer can still do business, those around them say.

One Labour MP, granted anonymity to speak frankly about internal party thinking, said Starmer’s relationship with Sunak behind closed doors is better than the one he had with Boris Johnson. “They can talk to each other,” the MP said.

Another Labour MP — hardly giving a glowing endorsement of the relationship — said the vibe between the two leaders is “definitely better than Boris.”

An official who works closely with senior Labour figures agreed Starmer’s relationship with Sunak is better than with Johnson. But the same person said Starmer has privately described the prime minister as “smarmy,” and believes he does not take politics seriously enough.

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“He doesn’t like parliament and political games,” they said of the Labour leader, who believes Sunak is out of touch with core issues due to his wealth. “He’s up for that” as a campaign attack in the election to come, they added.

A senior Tory aide meanwhile said Sunak and Starmer have a “business-like” relationship that is mutually respectful — but added that their interactions have deteriorated since a controversial social media attack from Labour.

In April 2023, the official Labour Twitter account posted a graphic of the prime minister accompanied by the caption: “Do you think adults convicted of sexually assaulting children should go to prison? Rishi Sunak doesn’t.” The post referred to crime statistics on pedophiles spared jail — but Keir Starmer faced an angry backlash with the campaign branded a “dog whistle,” “shameful” and “appalling” by Conservative critics.

The Conservative aide said the ad “broke the seal” to give the party “license to be more punchy.”

“We were shocked that Labour would go that low and I can guarantee something that spicy would have been seen by Starmer first,” the aide said.

As a result, they predicted: “There will be a lot of rough and tumble this year.”

PMQs palaver

At the very least, it means more to write about for the dedicated reporters paid to keep an eye on Starmer and Sunak’s weekly sparring at PMQs.

“It all got very personal with Rishi Sunak calling [Starmer] a lefty lawyer who defended terrorists,” said Crace, who nevertheless thinks the spectacle of the pair getting personal “looks kind of charmless and it looks childish.”

Madeline Grant, parliamentary sketch writer at the Telegraph agreed that something has definitely shifted.

“Going after people’s families, Starmer going after Sunak’s wealth — his wife’s wealth — that seems to be quite new ground,” Grant said. “There was always something of an omertà about leaving people’s families out of it.”

A recent pre-written “gotcha” line from Sunak prompted the biggest PMQs flare-up for some time. The prime minister triggered a furious backlash when he launched into an attack on Starmer for his stance on the gender wars flashpoint of how to define a woman.

His quip was made the same day Esther Ghey, mother of murdered transgender teenager Brianna Ghey, was due to watch PMQs from public gallery of the Commons. 

Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

“Shame,” cried Starmer. Sunak was urged to apologize. He did not.

The Labour leader later told the BBC that his opinion of prime minister “changed” during that exchange. “He has lost some of my respect because of his response,” Starmer said. 

“I genuinely believe that the prime minister of all people should rise above and be able to speak to and for the nation,” Starmer said. “Every citizen should feel safe and respected that is a bare minimum. And I thought he crossed the line.”

No cut and thrust

The storm over those comments dominated political coverage for days — a far cry from the initially news-free PMQs sessions that had been characteristic of the pair’s first exchanges.

“From the very beginning, the exchanges became quite uninspiring, frankly, without any of that kind of cut and thrust that you would want to see in a good PMQs,” says Grant of the Telegraph.

“It’s clear that they both dislike going to PMQs,” she observes. “It’s not their preferred, natural habitat. They’re both quite humorless people. At least, that’s how they come across publicly.”

Even if the attacks continue, it’ll be hard to shift the cynicism that greets the entire braying spectacle of PMQs in some quarters.

“Often I long for there to be something else going on Wednesday,” said the Guardian’s Crace — just so that I don’t have to sketch PMQs yet again.”

Dan Bloom and Stefan Boscia contributed reporting.