Starmer Bats Back Badenoch's Jibe Over Louise Haigh With 'Gentle' Reminder Of Tory Legacy

Keir Starmer reminded Kemi Badenoch of her own Tory predecessors’ relationship with the law after she tried to make a dig over Louise Haigh.

Haigh dramatically quit as the transport secretary last week after her 2014 fraud conviction resurfaced.

Badenoch asked Starmer how much he had known about Haigh’s past in PMQs, but the prime minister managed to spin her question on its head.

The Tory leader began by claiming the prime minister “owed the House an explanation” over his former transport secretary’s departure.

“He said the former transport secretary was only asked to resign after further information came to light,” she said. “What was that further information?”

“I’m not going to disclose private conversations,” Starmer replied. “Further information came to light and the [transport] secretary resigned. As I say, what a marked contrast.”

Badenoch hit back: “He never answers any questions. And he looks like he didn’t ask his transport secretary any questions either.

“The truth is he appointed a person convicted of fraud to the cabinet.”

Alluding to Haigh’s decision to give striking train workers a pay rise, she continued: “The first thing she did was bung hundreds of millions of pounds in pay rises to her trade union friends.

“Wasn’t this a fraud on the British people?”

She added: “The country needs conviction politicians not politicians with convictions.”

Starmer just hit back: “Mr Speaker, I gently remind her that two of her predecessors had convictions for breaking the Covid laws.”

Then prime minister Boris Johnson and his former chancellor Rishi Sunak were both fined for breaching their own Covid lockdown rules in 2022.

The scandal, known as partygate, saw the two politicians and a collection of their Downing Street staff, receive a £50 fixed penalty notice from the Met Police.

Haigh received a spent conviction a decade ago after she told police she was mugged and her work mobile phone stolen.

She later found the device at home, and was called into police for questioning. Acting on her legal advice, she did not say anything to the police, leading to her fraud conviction the following year.

Starmer’s spokesperson refused to clarify that but simply said more information around the incident has since come to light. 

Badenoch’s spokesperson told reporters that fixed penalty notices are “not criminal convictions”.

“This is about transparency and honesty and it’s not good enough to say this is a private matter,” he said. “The prime minister needs to explain did he know about the criminal conviction and put her in the cabinet anyway or did he not and that is why he fired her on Friday?

“He has not come clear with the public. This is a serious matter, there have follow up reports about further things to do with phones that need answers and the government is seeking to sweep this under the carpet. This goes to a total matter of transparency and honesty.”

A Labour source said: “If the Conservatives want to have a row about the extent of their criminality while in Downing Street that’s fine by us.

“The fact is two of the leader of the opposition’s predecessors were found guilty of breaking the law with partying in Downing Street while telling everyone else to follow the rules, something the leader of the opposition said a few weeks ago was ‘overblown’. She might want to retract that statement.”