The Liaison Committee exposed Starmer’s weaknesses

Coffee House Shots

The Spectator

News, Daily News, Politics

4.4 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 15 December 2025

⏱️ 13 minutes

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Summary

It’s nearly Christmas, but there is still lots of excitement to be had in Westminster, including Keir Starmer’s trip to the Liaison Committee. This is where the Prime Minister sits in front of senior MPs and is grilled on various policy areas. Today’s topics included the leaks (Wes Streeting and the OBR) and Keir Starmer’s integrity more generally, as well as the farm tax, the House of Lords and the government’s long-anticipated strategy to counter violence against women and girls. How did today’s proceedings expose the ‘paucity’ of Starmer’s Labour?

Oscar Edmondson speaks to Isabel Hardman and James Heale.

Produced by Oscar Edmondson.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Give something clever this Christmas.
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0:17.7	Go to spectator.com.uk forward slash Christmas.
0:28.5	Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, The Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast. I'm
0:32.9	Markinson and I'm joined today by Isabel Hardman and James Heel. Now we are are fast approaching Christmas, but there is, of course, still lots of excitement to be had around Westminster, as evidenced by Keir Starmer's appearance at the Liaison Committee today. Now, the liaison committee is where the Prime Minister gets grilled by various senior MPs on lots of different policy areas, and usually it's a great opportunity for those who quite enjoy the genre of politicians
0:56.1	stumbling over what they have to say and getting caught out. Isabel, you said that you very
1:00.6	much enjoyed today's proceedings. Yeah, I mean, look, my threshold for enjoyment is quite low,
1:06.1	in fairness, but I thought it was, there was news, and there was news on a number of fronts. I thought
1:12.2	it was quite illustrative of the situation that Starma was in. When I say my threshold is
1:18.5	quite low, it is generally quite low because I get very excited by Select Committee and Public
1:23.3	Inquiry reports. But in particular, the liaison committee is not always a forum for discovery.
1:30.9	It can often just be 90 minutes of a prime minister burbling. And so even though they're sort of
1:37.1	built as a big event, they can be a bit of a disappointment. But today, Stama had to answer a lot
1:42.7	of questions initially on his own Essex and integrity and then
1:46.5	his authority and leadership. And we had quite a long discussion actually over the leaks in Downey Street,
1:54.0	both in terms of briefings against cabinet members such as West Streeting and also leaks about
2:00.4	the budget and where they could possibly have come from.
2:03.9	And whilst Stama didn't, he obviously didn't name any leakers or say, you know, I'm actually planning to sack this guy this afternoon.
2:12.4	He did spend quite a lot of time making comments that I thought underlined his predicament.
2:18.7	Also, later in the session, he had to answer quite a lot of questions on inheritance tax
	...

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