A ‘classically awful’ PMQs to round out the year

Coffee House Shots

The Spectator

News, Daily News, Politics

4.4 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 17 December 2025

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

Today was the final PMQs of the year – and it was certainly not a classic. It is customary for the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition to make some attempt at Christmas cheer by telling jokes at the despatch box, but this year’s zingers were awful. Despite a promising start from Keir Starmer, it soon degenerated into quips about whether the Prime Minister has ‘the baubles’ and whether Kemi Badenoch will be ‘Home Alone’. None of the jokes were delivered with any aplomb. Is this parliament at its worst?

Also today, Wes Streeting is under pressure as the junior doctors’ strike begins – how is he dealing with the walkout?

James Heale speaks to Isabel Hardman and Tim Shipman.

Produced by Oscar Edmondson.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Give something clever this Christmas.
0:02.2	Treat a loved one to a year of The Spectator, in print and online, for just £99.
0:07.9	And we'll send you a bottle of our very own English sparkling wine worth £48 £48, absolutely free.
0:15.3	Have a bright and sparkling Christmas with the Spectator.
0:17.7	Go to spectator.com.uk forward slash Christmas.
0:26.6	Hello, welcome to Coffee House Shots. I'm James Hill. I'm joined today by Tim Shipman and Isabel Harbman.
0:33.5	Now, it's been the final PMQ's of 2025. Tim, was this one of the classics? It was classically
0:39.1	awful. It is one of the worst Prime Minister's questions I've ever sat through. We've spent
0:44.7	weeks now explaining how Kemi Bader Knox doing a much better job. And the question, sort of
0:49.6	construction was okay. She kind of tried to have a go at all of Starmers's broken promises. So there was a different, you know, we had unemployment, we had business rates on pubs, we had the doctor's strike. But we also had some of the very worst jokes that have ever been told in the House of Commons. And I thought initially it was going to be quite good. Stama, not generally a man who delivers a joke with any degree of a plomb.
1:14.6	He first thanked all the MPs and said, you know, wished them all a happy Christmas.
1:18.6	He said, just a word of advice to those gentlemen from reform,
1:22.6	if mysterious men from the East approach bearing gifts next time report it to the police.
1:28.5	Genuine belly laugh. I laughed out loud. You even heard me. You were in the same office
1:32.6	with me as I was cackling away. Evaneated from the belly, yes. Yes. But then what followed,
1:37.5	I mean, Kemi Bade Nock referred to the government being a bunch of turkeys fit for a Bernard Matthews factory.
1:45.6	I mean, I don't know if Bernard Matthews still advertises, but that joke was barely funny in the 1980s.
1:50.6	I think that's older than when the PMC started being televised.
1:53.0	Exactly. And she said, oh, last week he was the caretaker prime minister.
1:56.9	But because of the state of the economy, he's the undertaker prime minister.
2:00.7	What? Cue, the sort of echoing tumbleweed across the chamber.
2:06.0	She then taunted Stama for refusing to sort of take on the unions and said he doesn't have
	...

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