I began Business of the House Questions this week by recognising that the funeral of Margaret Thatcher was the end of an era. I rarely agreed with her but she did break the existing political and economic consensus and now I think it’s time do so again.

I pointed out the scramble this government is in trying to get their legislation through before the end of this parliamentary session. On Tuesday the local government secretary got himself in a right old pickle on his chaotic plans for a free market free-for-all in conservatory construction. With Labour, Lib Dems and Tories uniting against him he was forced to hint at an unspecified concession. But in the damning words of Cheryl Gillan, his colleague around the cabinet table for two years, ‘We are not going to believe what he says until we see it in black and white.’  I pointed out that this incompetent government can’t even work out how to organise a concession in a conservatory!

For 60 years the agricultural wages board has protected vulnerable rural workers from exploitation at the hands of rich landowners. But on Tuesday, without so much as a hint of a debate or even a vote in the Commons, the government abolished it. This transfers £240m from workers in some of the toughest and lowest paid jobs in rural England directly into the back pockets of their employers. It is a disgrace that such a crucial protection can be removed without so much as a vote or even a debate in the democratically elected House. It will take our opposition day debate next week for the arguments to be heard, but for rural workers their protections have already been destroyed.

I then raised the shocking case of NHS waiting times. In 28 of the 31 weeks the health secretary has been in the job England’s major Accident and Emergency units have missed the target for treating patients within four hours. At the same time he has handed £2.2bn of NHS funds back to the Treasury. I asked Andrew Lansley if he thought this was acceptable.

On the economy I noted ,that following the budget, the IMF has this week again slashed the UK growth forecast and agreed with Labour that the chancellor needs to change course. A year ago it was predicting growth of two per cent; now it is just 0.7 per cent. Unemployment is now rising, real wages are falling and borrowing is shooting through the roof but the chancellor’s only growth strategy seems to be destroying rights at work.

I finished by raising the mysterious changing voice of George Osborne. Our downgraded chancellor has been busy trying to play a man of the people. He has attempted to distract attention from his huge tax cut for millionaires by dropping his aitches in a speech at Morrisons. And he wasn’t even very good at that!

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Angela Eagle is MP for Wallasey, shadow leader of the House of Commons and writes the weekly Business of Parliament column for Progress. She tweets @AngelaEagle