Prime ministers questions was certainly different today. And the prime minister was reminded on at least one occasion that he was confronting a new kind of politics.

The Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn succeeded where others have failed and changed the tone. It was less adversarial PMQs and more BBC question time.

Corbyn set the pace and the agenda. Many people, he said, told him when he was campaigning for the leadership that prime ministers questions were ‘too theatrical’. They wanted to have their voice heard in parliament.

‘I am sure the Prime Minister will welcome this as he did in 2005’, he said. As followers of politics will know, 2005 was the year David Cameron was elected Tory leader and vowed in his victory speech that he would get rid of ‘Punch and Judy politics’. As Corbyn reminded us though, Cameron seemed to have rather forgotten about this promise.

Corbyn told us he had 40,000 replies to his email asking the public to suggest questions. Housing was a subject that had been raised by 2,500 people. Marie, he said, wanted to know: ‘What does the government intend to do about the chronic lack of affordable housing … and the extortionate rents charged by some landlords?’

Cameron said of course that no one would be more delighted than him if prime ministers questions could be changed. And he proceeded to give a long exposition of Tory housing policy.

Corbyn then asked a question on behalf of Steven who works for a housing association and who was worried that the government policy of forcing housing associations to cut rents by one per cent would damage associations and lead to job losses. Cameron said that this was about getting the housing benefit bill down and was better for those who rented  – and anyway, housing associations would have to reform and be more efficient.

And so it went on. There were two questions about the loss of tax credits because 1,000 people had submitted questions on this.  Paul noted that tax credits played a vital role for families on low incomes and in some cases kept people away from food banks, while Clare asked about the changing the threshold for tax credits. Again Cameron rolled out Tory policy and said the welfare system had become unaffordable.

The final two questions were about mental health services: according to Corbyn Gail asked: ‘Do you find it acceptable that the mental health services are one their knees in this country?’ And Angela, who works in mental health, condemned the lack of mental health beds: ‘What does the prime minister say to Angela?’ – Corbyn tried.

Again he got a Tory textbook answer and some evasion.

The crowd-sourcing style worked in that it is impossible for Cameron to bully because then he would be bullying voters. On the other hand, the questions gave Cameron a free ride to expound on Tory policy and he did so at some length. That made it difficult for Corbyn to really go for the jugular on any issue and win the argument. The other problem was that the questions were too worthy. They certainly reflected the big issues of the day, and it was great to see mental health given such profile, but most of the questions could have been asked any day. They were not quite of the political moment as refugees had been last week.

Still, Corbyn did succeed in draining some of the theatricality from his confrontation with the prime minister.

Of course though theatricality is what the commons is all about and until the chamber is redesigned so everyone is sitting round in a circle, the adversarial approach will survive.

While Labour members of parliament followed the leader and asked untheatrical questions about public sector pay (from Ronnie Campbell, the MP from Blyth Valley) and their local hospital (from Daniel Zeichner, the MP for Cambridge), Cameron was determined to get his MPs to press home the Tories’ proposition that Corbyn and Labour are a danger to national security and anti-armed forces.

The first question was from the Tory MP Gordon Henderson, who represents Sittingbourne and Sheppey, until fairly recently a Labour held seat. It was inevitably about the Battle of Britain anniversary celebrations. Another Tory MP asked about the soldiers who went to Africa to help out in the Ebola crisis. Meanwhile, Nigel Dodds, the leader of the Northern Ireland Democratic Unionists raised the heat considerably by asking Cameron to denounce the shadow chancellor John McDonnell who he claimed had said that IRA terrorists should be honoured. Cameron duly obliged by condemning politicians who tried to justify the kind of terrorism that had killed the MPs Ian Gow and Airey Neave.

For a first go at the terrifying prime minister’s questions this was a sterling effort by Corbyn. He certainly managed to mix it up. Hopefully getting rid of theatricality does not make politics so dull that all the people who have engaged over the summer just wander off.

———————————

Sally Gimson is a journalist and councillor in the London borough of Camden. She writes the PMQs on Progress column and tweets @SallyGimson

———————————

Photo: BBC