Badenoch’s attack on ‘spiteful’

class-warrior Bridget Phillipson was ill-judged but quite correct

Sometimes, what we see in the House of Commons is so far from what we get that it resembles a Tommy Cooper conjuring trick.

A week ago today, Keir Starmer stood up at Prime Minister’s Questions with a majority of 156 Labour MPs. At the start of his premiership, they probably seemed like a comfort blanket for a man with no experience of government.

But by last week, Starmer had just resigned from the top job and was once more forced to endure the jibes and mockery of his Tory tormentor, Kemi Badenoch. He knew it was pointless to turn to his backbenchers for help.

For they were one of the principal reasons behind his abject surrender. They are a rabble, a gang of playground bullies with no discipline, no loyalty, no team spirit.

What should have been a decisive strength for the Prime Minister turned out to be an Achilles heel. His majority was so big that new, inexperienced, know-it-all MPs felt empowered to ignore their master’s voice.

Many of these are women and much further to the Left than Starmer. They call themselves progressive, wear smart business suits or flower-print dresses. But scratch the surface and they are red-clawed zealots.

They owe no fealty to Starmer and don’t see their job as helping to run the country, to make it wealthier, stronger, safer. Instead, they are on a mission… to get even. They want to change society, to mould it in their image.

They want the rich to pay (who doesn’t?) but failing that, which will forever be the case, they will settle for turning out the pockets of the middle classes, stripping them of their perceived privileges, bringing them down a peg or three.

They are the Angry Brigade and their heroine, or at least one of them, is Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson.

She was the target for a ferocious personal attack from Kemi Badenoch during PMQs, which I thought was ill-judged and a little overwrought. So did the Speaker. But Badenoch had one thing right: Phillipson is a spiteful class warrior.

Phillipson, 42, MP for Houghton and Sunderland South, was raised in poverty by a single mother who helped to found a domestic abuse charity. Announcing her bid to be the deputy leader of Labour, she said: “I have come from a tough council street all the way to the Cabinet.”

After her PMQs slapdown, Phillipson went after Badenoch to give her a piece of her mind. Badenoch told her: “I’m never going to stop talking about how  spiteful you are.”

Anyone who wanted to witness that spite had only to listen to Phillipson when she answered MPs’ questions as Education Secretary immediately before PMQs.

True, she was speaking about Glenn Gibbins, the Reform councillor in Sunderland who made vile racist comments about Nigerians. True also, it is rare that we see her cuddly side (like, never).

But her snarling, spitting, bile-drenched attack was even more shockingly virulent than Badenoch’s on her.

It was Phillipson who slapped VAT on private schools to pay for, she said, extra teachers in core subjects in state schools. It forced some private schools out of business, failed to raise much, if any, money and there are now even fewer teachers in the state system.

“It turns out appointing a spiteful class warrior as education secretary was a disaster,” said Badenoch, with her trademark ironic, gap-toothed smile at Phillipson on the Government front bench.

Badenoch also gave her scornful appraisal of Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who dropped the winter fuel allowance, burdened small farmers with inheritance tax and couldn’t seem to find any money for the defence of the realm. Another one settling scores as soon as her rump brushed the green leather.

Among other cheerleaders for the sour, vengeful streak that runs through the Labour back benches is Angela Rayner, who rose to be Deputy Prime Minister. She lost that job after manipulating her tax affairs and reducing her liability for stamp duty by £40,000.

She’s a Manchester lass, popular in the party, and under Andy Burnham, she’ll be back.

So will Sheffield-born Louise Haigh, whose hair used to be the colour of boiled beetroot and who lost her Cabinet post as Transport Secretary after it came to light that she had pleaded guilty to fraud in 2014 after falsely reporting her work phone had been stolen.

The betting in Westminster is that Burnham will take over as Prime Minister on  July 20. On Monday, he gave us a taste of what lies in store. And some of it was interesting.

Taking more control of our privatised utilities is overdue. Re-industrialisation sounds good but might prove fanciful. And the idea of boosting technical studies to give them parity with university learning is music to the ears.

A No. 10 in Manchester? I’ll get back to you on that, Andy. His speech was full of hope but light on detail and crucially, uncosted. It will take 10 years, he said.

 Ten years? He should be so lucky with the Angry Brigade watching. They will fête him at first.

But don’t be surprised if a Tory wag greets him with: “Watch out, Andy, they’re behind you.”

Because when he stands at the Despatch Box, they will be.

He might have to consider swapping his black T-shirt for a stab vest.

*****

It was only a cricket match. An important one, to be sure, but still only a cricket match.

That is, until 3.15pm on  the fourth day of the third Test match to decide the series between England and New Zealand.

That is when it ceased to be a proper Test match and became a frenzied, self-absorbed celebration of the cricketing cult that is Ben Stokes.

Stokes, 35, England’s captain, formally announced that this would be his last international match. The news swept through the Trent Bridge crowd like the bow wave of an ocean liner.

Friends turned to one another pointing at their phones. “Have you seen this?”

Stokes was bowling at the time: no coincidence. It was his 11th over and as he ran in to deliver the first ball, the crowd roared him on. An edge. Brook pouches the catch. The fans are delirious with joy.

It must be the first time a cricketer has orchestrated his own farewell. The Test became almost an exhibition match and mostly about him.

After tea, teammates formed a guard of honour as he came back out. When New Zealand declared, Stokes hurried off to strap on his pads and open the batting. He normally goes in at No. 6 or 7.

He smashed a quickfire 30, including a monster six, then smeared a catch to mid-on and headed for the pavilion, basking in the adulation. And that was it. His match was done. His captaincy too.

The day had started with an address to his teammates. He was packing it in. The  question “why?” would have to wait. Luckily, there was someone there to film his little speech.

Then at 3.15, came the official announcement. After that, bedlam. It was so worshipful I half-expected a gospel choir to strike up and the  crowd to cry “Hallelujah”.

Every top sportsman needs a big ego. It is what drives them; instils belief in them that they can do this implausible thing, surmount impossible obstacles, beat the odds… win.

Stokes wanted to go out in a blaze of glory, to wrest the match from New Zealand’s grasp single-handedly. He failed in that and thereafter cut a pensive and forlorn figure on the balcony.

His reckless batting spawned a revival of the discredited Bazball tactics by some of the team. These too failed and by mid-afternoon on Monday England had lost the match and the series.

Did Stokes deserve his last hurrah? He has been a great bowler and a destructive batsman. As a fielder he has taken some incredible catches. He was England’s best captain in years – aggressive, bold and imaginative. England will miss that player.

He was on a central contract that paid him £1 million a year and was due to run until the end of next summer’s Ashes series. The ECB is reportedly paying him off with a golden handshake.

But his last act was selfish, arrogant and – it seemed to me, at least – vengeful. Stokes and Gus Atkinson were suspended for a match after the Lord’s Test for breaking curfew to visit a Chelsea nightclub.

Inevitably, there was a bust-up and the cricketers’ minder (who knew?) got whacked by a Saracens rugby player. Although an inquiry cleared the pair, Stokes was angry at ECB bosses for withholding their unqualified backing. The episode was badly managed.

So he left on his terms. Manipulated events to seize the spotlight and upstage his team.

All he proved was that he was right: it was time to go.

His antics left a stain on his own legacy.

Still, it was only a cricket match. Wasn’t it?

*****

Comic maestro Mel Brooks turned 100 on Sunday. I wept with laughter at his masterpiece Blazing Saddles.

But his best one-liner – and there were many of them – comes from The Producers, the 1967 film in which he made his debut as a director.

The premise is that a failed Broadway producer and his accountant plot to stage the most offensive, most tasteless musical in history – and walk away with investors’ cash when it bombs on opening night.

Only it’s a rip-roaring success.

“How could this happen? I was so careful. I picked the wrong play, the wrong director, the wrong cast. Where did I go right?” asks Zero Mostel.

I don’t want to tempt fate, but many happy returns, Mel.

RICHARD DISMORE

1 July 2026