The most bizarre PMQs ever
Coffee House Shots
The Spectator
4.4 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 5 November 2025
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In a crowded field, today’s could have been the most bizarre PMQs ever.
From David Lammy pronouncing ‘I am the Justice Secretary’ as if it were an affirmation to be chanted in the bathroom mirror, to the wild hair on display on both benches, it surely takes the mantle of parliament at its most ridiculous – and that’s not to mention the story that another convict has escaped from prison. Has David Lammy got a grip on mistaken prison release? And – more importantly – does he have the support of his colleagues?
James Heale speaks to Tim Shipman and Isabel Hardman.
Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
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Transcript
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| 0:46.2 | Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots. I'm James Seal and joined today by Tim Shipman and Isabel Hardman. |
| 1:01.1 | Now, Isabel, you've been watching PMQ so many years, but for coming on this podcast, you revealed that you were such a glutton for punishment that today you watch PMQ's three times. Why was that? Because, James, you make me sound so old, |
| 1:05.0 | but in my many years of watching Prime Minister's question. Sorry, venerable. Venerable. Be careful, Pia. I'm even older than Isabelle is. |
| 1:18.8 | In my many venerable years of watching PMQ's, there haven't been that many that have been that mad. |
| 1:24.8 | And I sort of needed to do a bit of a kind of sanity check for myself after watching it live. |
| 1:27.1 | So when it finished, I watched the exchanges again. And I thought, |
| 1:28.8 | this is unhinged. And I'll explain to you why. Because the whole way that PMKs unfolded today |
| 1:34.5 | was that David Lammy was taking it, rather than Kirstama, James Cartlidge, was the opposition front bench |
| 1:40.4 | asking the questions. And he was asking about the accidental release of the convicted |
| 1:47.1 | sex offender, asylum seeker, but very quickly moved on to asking David Lammy whether he |
| 1:53.4 | could reassure the house that no asylum seeking prisoner had been accidentally released. |
| 2:04.4 | Now, it was quite a specific question the first time he asked it. |
| 2:06.7 | When he was asking it for the fifth time, |
| 2:10.4 | it was quite obvious that there was a reason he was asking this very specific question. |
| 2:15.3 | And it was very obvious from David Lammy's complete refusal to answer that this year had indeed happened. |
| 2:17.9 | Now, what most people in Westminster also knew by this point was it had indeed happened |
| 2:22.5 | and was about to break as a story. |
... |
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