Green MP Hannah Spencer, the former plumber who won Gorton and Denton from Labour, stood up at PMQs to ask about VAT cuts for the hospitality industry. She noted, in passing, that running a business as a plumber had made her “well used to dealing with dirty grubbiness – and there is still plenty of that dirty grubbiness behind me.” She was facing Keir Starmer. She was describing Reform. Lee Anderson’s face, by multiple accounts, was a picture. Then Reform supporters attacked her blouse. It did not go the way they hoped.
The two words – “dirty grubbiness” – landed because of the specific framing. Spencer’s background as a plumber is real, documented and central to the Green Party’s effort to present itself as something other than a London middle-class metropolitan project. Her observation that professional plumbing prepared her for dealing with dirt – and that Parliament has provided a familiar working environment in that respect – is a joke that works precisely because it operates on two levels simultaneously.
Reform’s bench, sitting behind and across from Spencer, appears to have understood both levels.
What Spencer actually said
Spencer’s question was substantive as well as pointed. She was asking Keir Starmer to back the “VAT’s the Problem” campaign, which calls for a reduction in VAT rates for hospitality businesses – pubs, restaurants, cafes – that have been struggling under existing rates.
“Running a business as a plumber, I was well used to dealing with dirty grubbiness, and there is still plenty of that dirty grubbiness behind me. Running a business is tough, so will the Prime Minister join me in backing the ‘VAT’s the Problem’ campaign to cut VAT rates in hospitality?”
It is worth noting this in full because what followed focused almost entirely on the “dirty grubbiness” line and the outfit controversy, to the point where Spencer’s actual policy question – on which she is arguably right, and on which she had Burnham’s support during the Makerfield debate as we reported in our BBC Makerfield debate piece – received significantly less attention.
Starmer’s response was that he was already cutting VAT over the summer through a “summer savings programme,” and then – characteristically – he found his own dig. “I note that we have not heard much from the Green party leader after he admitted he had not paid his council tax. Perhaps he has traded his houseboat for a submarine.”
The Reform response – and why it backfired
The “dirty grubbiness” line was aimed at Reform. This was immediately understood by everyone in the chamber. The reaction on the Reform benches – Lee Anderson’s face was described on social media as “like a smacked arse” and Ben Pochin’s expression was similarly captured – became the image of the moment.
What happened next is the part that escalated it. Reform supporters on social media decided that the appropriate response to Spencer calling them dirty and grubby was to attack her blouse.
@claire_adams694: “Nothing says ‘fight the wealthy elite’ quite like delivering the lecture in a Gucci blouse. We see you.”
@BlobWarriorUK: “PMQs Hannah Spencer, millionaire plumber of the decade and darling of Green party communism wears a £1500 Gucci silk shirt. Plenty for me but not for thee!”
There were two problems with this. First, it was probably not a Gucci shirt. @annaroseridgway, who says they are not a fan of Spencer’s politics, examined the blouse and concluded: “This is clearly not a Gucci shirt – it doesn’t have the monogram or logo on it and does not look like a Gucci shirt. It is most likely just a vintage horsebit print shirt and I am guessing she bought it not in Knightsbridge, but from one of the many vintage shops in Manchester.”
Second – and more fundamentally – Spencer is not a millionaire. She has one residence and co-owns a property with her ex-partner, with the total value around £1 million. As @annaroseridgway noted: “That is no ‘millionaire’ to me.”
Third, and most importantly: @AnnaSchurer simply asked, “How many male MPs are commonly attacked on what they wear? Thought so.”
The double standard in context
The outfit attack on Spencer is happening in the same week that Nigel Farage said “so what?” to questions about his candidate Robert Kenyon calling himself a sexist and endorsing a graphic sexual comment about Carol Vorderman – as we reported in our Farage so what piece.
The juxtaposition is not lost on observers. Reform’s leader dismissed documented sexist comments from his own candidate by saying the sentiments were the kind you’d “hear in every pub in the country every evening.” His supporters then attacked a Green MP by criticising her clothes.
@annaroseridgway: “Why should it matter what she wears or the value of her home? If you disagree with her on VAT, disagree with her argument like an adult. She is asking the PM to listen to the campaign to cut VAT on hospitality. If you are so pro-business… that should be a good thing! Hardly ‘communism’!”
The argument about VAT on hospitality is not communism. It is a policy position that pub landlords themselves have endorsed, as the Makerfield debate made clear when the pub where Burnham was being interviewed expressed a preference for VAT relief rather than business rates relief. Whether Spencer’s blouse is from Gucci or a vintage shop in Manchester is not relevant to whether she is right.
The two-word takedown stood up on its own. The response to it – from a party whose leader just said “so what” to sexism allegations – illustrated the point she was making more effectively than anything she could have added.
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