Starmer’s focus on facts left Johnson struggling to get his story straight

It’s always the toughest stage of The Apprentice: the interviews round. A slick-haired young telemarketer in a shiny suit will swagger in and start bragging about the foolproof business idea he’s had – only for the interviewer to take him apart like a Duplo train set. In no time, the candidate has dissolved into a puddle of babbling neurosis, unable to give a convincing answer to any question, up to and including the spelling of his own name.

This is what it’s like, these days, watching Sir Keir Starmer grill Boris Johnson at PMQS. Labour’s new leader is calm, polite, and utterly merciless. He doesn’t rant or shout put-downs. Instead he asks factual questions designed to establish whether or not the Prime Minister knows what his own Government is doing.

The latest figures, began Sir Keir yesterday, showed that at least 40 per cent of deaths from the virus had come in care homes. Yet, according to the Government’s advice in March, it was “very unlikely” that people in care homes would become infected.

Mr Johnson protested. “No, Mr Speaker,” he blurted, “it wasn’t true that the advice said that!”

But it was. Sir Keir was quoting the advice word for word, from a sheet of paper in front of him.

Next he asked about the vast number of unexplained deaths in care homes. In April, there had been 26,000 care home deaths. The previous April, there had been only 8,000. Yet of these additional 18,000 deaths, only 8,000 had been officially attributed to the virus. Could Mr Johnson give the Government’s view as to the cause of those 10,000 “unexplained” deaths?

Mr Johnson could not. In fact, it wasn’t obvious he’d understood the question. His reply was a cascade of helpless waffle. “Appalling disease… tragedy taking place… critical to our ability to move forward as a nation…”

On to the death toll overall. The Government, noted Sir Keir, had stopped producing the daily chart, which plotted death tolls in various countries, including Britain. Why?

“He seeks to make comparisons with other countries,” snorted Mr Johnson, “which I am advised are premature.”

Sir Keir looked puzzled. The Government had been publishing these “comparisons with other countries” for seven weeks. “It’s pretty obvious,” he said, “that when we didn’t have the highest number of deaths in Europe, the graphs were used for comparison purposes. But as soon as we did have the highest number, they were dropped.”

It was tough to watch. Mr Johnson’s supporters might well say: who cares about PMQS? The Prime Minister has far more important things on his plate. He’s trying to tackle a pandemic, for pity’s sake. Which is true.

The trouble is, all of Sir Keir’s questions were about the Prime Minister’s handling of that pandemic. About his Government’s advice, its actions, its figures, its findings. And this week – like last week – the Prime Minister didn’t have the answers.