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Louis Staples
Jul 15, 2020
PMQs is a weekly ritual that, no matter who the prime minister and leader of the opposition are, seems to be completely excruciating.
It’s a hailstorm of heckling, pre-prepared jibes and partisanship which makes more ordinary people want to yell “grow up!” at everyone involved.
This week, Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer went head-to-head yet again.
Highlights included Johnson not answering whether he’d read a report which said there could be a “second wave” on the way that could result in 120,000 deaths, and also arguing the UK’s embattled “track and trace” system was one of the best in the world.
But one of the most bizarre moments came at the end, when Johnson attacked Starmer for having “more briefs than Calvin Klein”.
So why did PMQs descend into literal underpants talk?
Johnson said Labour leader Keir Starmer must decide whether or not to support the government in its programme to stop a second coronavirus spike in the UK. (I mean, his literal job is “leader of the opposition”, but sure…)
Anyway, he ended up criticising Starmer for seemingly having lots of planned lines of attack, saying:
He needs to make up his mind which brief he is going to take today, because at the moment he's got more briefs than Calvin Klein.
It’s a little bit amusing that the PM seemed to be conceding that there’s so many government weaknesses for the Labour leader to be “briefed” on? It seems odd to point this out.
On social media, lots of people didn’t think the joke was funny, given the circumstances.
But there were also people who thought it was a good line.
We suppose underpants jibes is a slight improvement from last week, when the prime minister accidentally invoked 'South Park' when attacking Starmer. Where there's a will, there's a way...
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