Quentin Letts

Kemi Badenoch dominated the Westminster day by talking sternly about defence, first at a livery hall near London Bridge, then with an urgent question in the Commons.

Two resignation statements, one after the other, gave lunchtime a double-barrelled blast. John Healey's speech was followed by one from his former underling at Defence, Al 'Killer' Carns.

With Sir Keir Starmer in Evian, enjoying a likely last few days of prestige, writes QUENTIN LETTS, we were down to the scrapings for PMQs.

At his victory shindig he wore a white polo shirt, untucked at the waist, hoping to disguise his moobs. And yet a brief outline of 56-year-old male nipple was glimpsed.

My old, calamity-prone friend Michael Gove in charge of our country's destiny during a nuclear attack? It's the stuff of screaming nightmares.

To be prime minister is a chance to impose one's character and beliefs on the nation - to mould the era. But what if the holder of this great office has no distinctive personality?

To be prime minister is a chance to impose one's character and beliefs on the nation - to mould the era. But what if the holder of this great office has no distinctive personality?

What a brutish business politics is. Sir Keir accepted his fate with reluctant grace but towards the end the understated, bitten-back Englishness of it all became a little too much.

What a brutish business politics is. Sir Keir accepted his fate with reluctant grace but towards the end the understated, bitten-back Englishness of it all became a little too much.

Economic gloom, defense cuts and scandal took down Britain’s prime minister.