Defiant Rishi Sunak insists he’s tough on terrorists and China as Sir Keir labels him ‘inaction man’

A DEFIANT Rishi Sunak today insisted he’s tough on China and terrorists, despite being rocked by a string of national security scandals.

At PMQs Mr Sunak argued that the case of terrorist escapee Daniel Khalife was “extremely rare”.

And he said the government takes the “challenge” of China seriously – despite a researcher for senior Tory MPs recently being arrested on suspicion of spying for the communist state.

But Sir Keir Starmer had none of it and slammed the PM as “inaction man”.

He said: “The truth is (the PM is) presiding over mayhem in the criminal justice system.

“Only a few short months ago, Zara Aleena’s family said, ministers had, and this is their words, ‘blood on their hands after probation failures that led to her murder’.

“So, it beggars belief that we are back here once again. The Chief Inspector of Prisons said conditions in Wandsworth are so bad it should be shut down.”

Mr Sunak hit back at the opposition chief, arguing that prison escapes were ten times higher under the last Labour government than the Tories.

He said:  “I am happy to tell him that over the last few years we have delivered an extra 4,000 new prison officers, staffing levels at Wandsworth in particular are up by 25% in the past six years and because we are boosting prison pay, we are also improving retention, and at the same time investing £100 million to improve prison security with new measures like X-ray body scanners.”

Sir Keir Starmer slammed the PM “inaction man” over his record in government, highlighting probation, prison, schools, China”.

“Yet again inaction man fails to heed the warning and then blames everyone else for the consequences,” he said.

The Labour chief also called for a “full audit of UK-China relations”.

Refusing to back down, Mr Sunak highlighted that Sir Keir was all too happy to serve as a member of ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet.

He slammed the far-left MP for Islington North as “a person who wanted to abolish the army, scrap Trident, and withdraw from Nato”.