PMQs: Starmer’s Best Yet?
Politics Unpacked
Anna Covell
4.1 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 21 January 2026
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sir Keir Starmer says he will not yield to Donald Trump over the future of Greenland, calling recent criticism of the Chagos deal an attempt to force the issue -- did this rebuke to Trump spark his best performance yet?
Hugo Rifkind unpacks the exchanges from the Commons with Patrick Magurie, Stefan Boscia and Andy Parsons.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | PMQ's Unpacked on Times Radio, unpacking the politics and cutting through the crossfire. And I'm joined as ever by the Times as Chief Political Commentator Patrick McIntyre. Hello, Patrick. Hello, Hugo. How are you? I'm good. How are you keeping? I'm all right, thank you. Good to have you back with us. And we're also joined this week by the comedian Andy Parsons. Are you a big PMQ's fan? No. No. Neither are we. |
| 0:21.9 | No. |
| 0:22.4 | But you're here every week. |
| 0:23.5 | Have you seen it before? |
| 0:24.8 | Yeah. Are you a big PMQ's fan? No. |
| 0:21.0 | Not at all. Neither are we. No. But you're here every week. Have you seen it before? Yes. I'm aware of the process. Right. I've seen it live, I believe, as well. Oh, really? Yes. I did get to go in for Radio 5 at some stage last year. So, uh... Throwing fruit from the back. Patrick, what are we going to get today? |
| 0:39.4 | Chequos, Chegos, Chegos, Chegos? |
| 0:40.8 | Well, let me... Yes. some stage last year. So, throwing fruit from the back. |
| 0:39.2 | Patrick, what are we going to get today? |
| 0:40.4 | Chegos, Chegos, Chegos, Chegos. |
| 0:44.4 | Well, let me take you inside my working day. |
| 0:47.0 | Yesterday, I was sat outside the Red Lion, |
| 0:50.8 | mostly trying to work out what to do with my evening and my life. |
| 0:57.1 | One of Keir Starmes' PMQ's prep team walked past me and we had a conversation. |
| 0:58.4 | He said, what you think is going to come tomorrow. |
| 0:59.5 | And that's basically what I said. |
| 1:02.1 | I said, it's going to be the Chegos Islands and nothing else. |
| 1:07.6 | Sorry to interrupt, but is that a bit sad that some of the prep team are asking sort of people they bump into the street what they think is going to come up tomorrow. |
| 1:10.2 | But by their standards, I think that is quite diligent. |
| 1:27.4 | Usually, I'm not entirely sure they do that much research. But yeah, they said, well, I'll go in now and I'll cite you and it doesn't come up. Then it's your fault. So if Keith's Tomliners badly today, he has me to blame. He's absolutely guaranteed to come up. but I'm pretty certain that Genwick's going to come up because it's the first PMQ since he's left, |
| 1:29.4 | well, he'll bring it up in response. |
| 1:31.3 | I don't know. It's absolutely guaranteed to come up, but I'm pretty certain that Genrick's going to come up because it's the first PMQs since he's left. |
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