AN SNP MP was admonished by the speaker during Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday after shouting at Keir Starmer for repeating a boilerplate retort.
The Labour leader had been asked by the SNP’s Dave Doogan about when he next planned to visit Scotland before the clash.
Starmer responded: “The honourable member asks about visiting Scotland, as he knows, my first visit as a Prime Minister, within days of becoming Prime Minister, was to Scotland, where I met the First Minister.
“I've also been for the meeting of the Council of Regions and Nations in October, Interpol General Assembly in November, the British Irish Council in Edinburgh in December.
“I look forward to going again very soon.”
Responding, Doogan asked why Starmer thought Labour were seeing a marked decline in the polls north of the Border.
SNP MP Dave Doogan was told off for shouting at the Prime Minister during PMQs 👀 pic.twitter.com/lSimg9IMeW
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The SNP MP for Angus and Perthshire Glens said: “Does he agree with the withering assessment of the eminent politics professor Sir John Curtice, who says the current UK Prime Minister is the worst thing to happen to [Scottish Labour leader] Anas Sarwar?
“And if he doesn't – and he should – does he think it's stripping Scottish pensioners of their Winter Fuel Payment, or abandoning workers in Grangemouth, or attacking the national insurance payments of farmers that is what's catastrophically torpedoed Labour in the polls in Scotland?
“So, when he does get a date [to visit Scotland], he can even bring his Chancellor with him to back him up on the numbers, assuming she's still the Chancellor by then?”
In his response, Starmer said he could “remember when that rhetoric used to come from them sitting down here”, pointing to the front benches where the Parliament’s third party would sit.
Before the General Election, the SNP were the third largest group in the Westminster parliament – and Starmer has often referred to their previous position in his responses to the party’s MPs.
Doogan shouted as Starmer was speaking: “That’s the same answer you gave the last time.”
Starmer then stopped and the speaker of the Commons, Lindsay Hoyle, interjected. “Mr Doogan, I want no more,” he said.
Starmer then said: “He has to shout, Mr Speaker, because they're so far up there, so few of them, that they can't get heard without shouting.”
