IF you’re going to accuse your opponents of not being across the detail, it’s probably a good idea to get your own facts straight first. Unless, apparently, you’re Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
The Labour leader took aim at Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday by falling back on a familiar refrain.
No, not “I can’t hear them up there, they used to be down here”. That’s the go-to jibe for the SNP.
Instead, Starmer hit Badenoch with the classic “She’s not across the details”.
“She hasn’t even seen what’s on the page,” Starmer said of the Tory leader’s opposition to an EU trade deal. “A once great political party is sliding into brain-dead oblivion.”
READ MORE: Keir Starmer called out for ‘disgusting’ jibe at Welsh MP during PMQs
Embarrassingly for Starmer then, he doesn’t seem to have quite understood the details of his own trade deals – which in the case of the agreement with Donald Trump, is a very generous term indeed.
Going on something of a rant about that US agreement, Starmer said: “Can I suggest that she gets the train to Solihull, two hours, goes to speak to the workforce at JLR [Jaguar Land Rover], their families, their communities, to tell them she would rip up the deal that protects their jobs.
“And when she’s done that she might travel across to Scunthorpe and tell the steelworkers there, she’s going to rip up the deal that saves their jobs.
“And then if she’s got time, go up to Scotland and talk to the whisky distilleries. Tell them she’d rip up the deal that’s creating 1200 jobs for them, boosting their exports, and then come back here next week and tell us what reaction she got.”
Labour leader Keir Starmer speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday (Image: ParliamentLive) No doubt like many Scots listening to that from the Prime Minister, the Jouker couldn’t help but think: “Huh?”
It seems that the Labour leader has gotten a little confused when it comes to Scotland. Quelle surprise. At least he remembered it exists – apparently unlike during the US trade negotiations.
Because that Trump trade deal, as people with memories of longer than one week will recall, did absolutely nothing for Scotland’s whisky industry.
It was facing a 10% tariff on US exports last month thanks to Trump, and faces a 10% tariff next month thanks to Starmer.
If Labour continue to do nothing at all, that tariff is set to jump to 25% in June next year.
It seems Starmer was thinking of the India trade deal, which managed to negotiate tariffs on Scotch whisky down from an astronomical 150% to a slightly-less-astronomical 75%.
Details. Who needs them?