Sir Keir Starmer has defended his record in government after Kemi Badenoch accused him of having “squandered his political capital” in the last Prime Minister’s Questions before elections next week.

The Conservative leader said Sir Keir had presided over “one disaster after another” and was now focused on “saving his own skin”.

The prime minister said Labour had delivered rights at work, security for renters and lifted half a million children out of poverty adding: “That’s our mission, nothing is going to hold us back.”

He said the Tories were playing “political games” – a reference to the party’s attempt to launch an inquiry into whether the PM misled MPs over the appointment of Lord Mandelson.

On Tuesday evening, the House of Commons voted not to refer the prime minister to the Privileges Committee by 335 votes to 233.

The majority of Labour MPs voted against the motion, following a No 10 operation to rally support for the prime minister.

Sir Keir has rejected claims he misled the Commons about the vetting process for Lord Mandelson, who was appointed as the UK’s ambassador to the US but sacked seven months into the job.

Badenoch said the prime minister had been reduced to “begging” his MPs for their support in the vote and drew a contrast with the weeks following the 2024 general election when she said the government benches were “full of sycophantic questions from adoring new MPs”.

“This government is like a bad episode of Game Of Thrones,” she said, and in a reference to Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, added: “His own people have turned against him and all the while, the prime minister is holed up in his castle, wetting himself about a visit from the King in the North.”

The Conservative leader argued that the UK could not defend itself because too much money was being spent on welfare and the prime minister was unable to cut benefit bills because he had “squandered all his political capital saving his own skin”.

The prime minister replied that the government was increasing defence spending to its highest level since the end of the Cold War.

He also said the government had introduce the youth guarantee aimed at helping young people into work.

Referring to the Privileges Committee vote on Tuesday, Sir Keir said that while he had been chairing a meeting on the war in the Middle East, Badenoch had been engaged in “a desperate, baseless political stunt”.

Also during PMQs, Badenoch seized on rumours in Westminster of a government reshuffle in the wake of next week’s elections.

The Conservative leader asked if the prime minister would “listen to the country and reshuffle the Chancellor?”

Sir Keir did not directly answer the question, highlighting falling interest rates before the war in Iran.

But the PM’s failure to rule out sacking Rachel Reeves prompted Badenoch to declare the Chancellor was “toast”.

Last year Downing Street said Reeves will remain in her role “for the whole of this Parliament”. In a briefing to journalists after PMQs, the prime minister’s political secretary tried to hose down rumours about the Chancellor’s position.

“The position remains unchanged,” he said.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey used one of his two allotted questions to ask about food security, following the war against Iran and the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

He said food prices would rise by 10% this year as “farmers’ costs soar” and urge the government to introduce a Good Food Bill, which the party has said would introduce long-term targets for food security and enable UK farmers to invest in food production.

Sir Keir said he had discussed the issue of food security during his meeting on Tuesday and added that the events in the Middle East would “affect every single one of our constituents”.

He also attacked the Liberal Democrat leader for backing the Privileges Committee motion saying: “I expect frivolous accusations from the leader of the Opposition -clearly, I was wrong to expect anything better than from the man in the wetsuit” – a reference to Sir Ed’s campaigning tactics.

In next week’s elections, voters in Scotland and Wales will go to the polls to elect representatives in the national parliaments, while voters in England will elect councillors in around 5,000 local authority seats.

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