Is Keir Starmer PM already? Rishi Sunak was asking him the questions...

Stephen Flynn of the SNP looked from Tory to Labour benches, from man to pig and back again, and ‘already it was impossible to say which was which’, writes John Rentoul

Starmer lectured the prime minister on the meaning of fiscal responsibility (Reuters)

It is one of the oldest debating tactics in Prime Minister’s Questions: the leader of the opposition says that if the prime minister wants to ask him questions, he is quite happy to swap places.

Sometimes the speaker even joins in the game, as Sir Lindsay Hoyle did today, and reminds the prime minister that he should be answering the questions, not asking them.

Keir Starmer, fresh from his trip to the Guru Blair, treated Rishi Sunak’s question with a lighter touch than the leaden humour we have been used to of late. “With his time away, he’s forgotten how this works,” Starmer said, referring to his opponent’s absences from the two previous sessions.