Tory MPs lashed out at under-pressure leader Kemi Badenoch today after she failed to hammer Labour over Angela Rayner‘s embarrassing tax admission.
Mrs Badenoch urged Sir Keir Starmer to show ‘backbone’ and sack his deputy at the start of Prime Minister’s Questions, shortly after Ms Rayner admitted underpaying stamp duty on the purchase of a lavish second home by £40,000.
But standing just feet from Ms Rayner, the opposition leader used the rest of her questions to the PM to lambast him over the dire state of the economy, rather than attack Labour over the tax scandal.
Ms Badenoch’s spokesman told reporters after PMQs that both were ‘important stories’ and said voters wanted to know what was happening to their bills, mortgages and taxes amid turmoil in the markets in recent days.
But she was forced to conduct a television interview about Ms Rayner after leaving the chamber to more forcefully ram home an attack.
It all prompted one veteran Tory to tell the Mail: ‘Not a good day for the Kemi share price. FFS.’
Another rueful Tory MP admitted they had been surprised by Mrs Badenoch’s lack of focus. ‘Not her best… That’s life I suppose.’
Another well-connected grandee told MailOnline that their colleagues were ‘cross’ about the performance.
It comes as questions continue to be asked about her tenure – still less than a year – in charge of the party, which is still languishing third in the polls.
Mrs Badenoch urged Sir Keir Starmer to show ‘backbone’ and sack his deputy at the start of Prime Minister’s Questions, shortly after Ms Rayner admitted underpaying stamp duty on the purchase of a lavish second home by £40,000.
But standing just feet from Ms Rayner, the opposition leader used the rest of her questions to the PM to lambast him over the dire state of the economy, rather than attack Labour over the scandal engulfing his deputy.
But she was forced to conduct a television interview about Ms Rayner after leaving the chamber to more forcefully ram home an attack.
The Deputy Prime Minister, dubbed ‘Three Pads’ Rayner in a row over her trio of homes, said she ‘deeply regrets’ the error made when purchasing her £800,000 apartment in Hove, East Sussex.
In a tearful TV interview, a ‘devastated’ Ms Rayner revealed she has referred herself to an ethics watchdog to investigate whether she had broken ministerial rules.
But pressure was growing on Sir Keir to immediately remove Ms Rayner from his Government, in which she also serves as Housing Secretary, rather than wait for the results of the probe into her tax blunder.
It all broke at 11.30, 30 minute before PMQs, with Ms Badenoch having already been practicing her lines on the economy.
Ms Badenoch opened by welcoming Ms Rayner referring herself to the ministerial ethics adviser, Sir Laurie Magnus and asked: ‘why is she still in office?’
After Sir Keir defended his deputy she said: ‘I’m not sure we would have heard all that sympathy if it was a Conservative deputy prime minister who had underpaid her tax.
‘I remember when the Prime Minister said tax evasion is a criminal offence, and should be treated as all other fraud. If he had a backbone, he would sack her.’
However, after that she focused on the economy and the cost of borrowing, a move which surprised even Labour MPs.
Bury North’s James Frith told GB News: ‘I think Keir, the Prime Minister, performed very well. I think he probably would have expected Kemi Badenoch to zone in more. I think, notwithstanding the short notice, I’m surprised she didn’t lean into that more.’
But other Tories suggested it might not matter much outside of Parliament as voters would only see clips from the session.
‘If you look at the news bulletins now what’s being used is the fact she called for Rayner to be sacked,’ they said.
‘Beyond this building it might not be as damaging.’
Mrs Badenoch’s spokesman told reporters the Tories had been central in ‘pushing’ for answers from Ms Rayner.
‘She (Badenoch) called for her (Rayner) to go and I’m told the BBC led with that at the top of the 1pm news,’ he added.
‘This is a very important story, this is about the deputy PM, the housing secretary, having misled the public for the past month.
‘But there is a very big story in what people are experiencing out there at the moment and PMQs is a chance to put the PM under pressure for what he is doing to our country.
‘What the people at home, as much as they do like the knockabout of Westminster politics, want to know (is) ”what are you doing’ so that the price of my weekly shop comes down so that my wages are not undermined, so that my mortgage is not going up, so my energy bills are not going up?”’
Shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride took a swipe at Ms Rayner as he opened the Conservatives’ Opposition Day debate after PMQs, asserting that if she wants to make the rules, then ‘she should live by them’.
Sir Mel said: ‘I’m absolutely certain that the Deputy Prime Minister had a good recess.
‘We saw many photographs of her down at the seaside, just off the coast in a rubber dinghy, rather like many of the other photographs over the summer given the reckless policies this Government has towards illegal migration.
‘She was probably celebrating the acquisition of another property for her property empire, but perhaps also slightly tinged with that nagging doubt as to whether she had indeed paid enough stamp duty. Well, we will get to the bottom of that in due course.’
He added: ‘If (Ms Rayner) wants to make the rules, she should live by them.
‘And that will be a message which will go out to businesses and families right up and down this country. There is no way that they can avoid the juggernaut of taxes that are coming down the track.’
