PMQs review: A farewell to Starms

“This is the end of my political journey”, Keir Starmer announced as he made the closing remarks of his last Prime Minister’s Questions, two years and one week after he led Labour to its greatest victory in a generation. A packed chamber rose to its feet and applauded (the Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, admonished them for doing so; MPs are supposed to wave their papers and cheer). On the benches behind the speaker, Starmer’s political team were all in tears, probably at the departure of a decent but flawed prime minister, but possibly also because they had subjected to half an hour of terrible, repetitive jokes. Before Starmer’s last PMQs began, questions hung unspoke in the air. Would Andy Burnham – already being referred to in the chamber as “the incoming prime minister” – attend? (No: the mem