The Tories at prime ministers’ questions were particularly nasty today. They hate Labour and despise Jeremy Corbyn – and so they booed throughout prime ministers’ questions, particularly when Corbyn asked yet again about cuts to tax credits.
David Cameron – at his arrogant worst – was unable to conceal his basic contempt. At the end of the session today he could be heard complaining that it was ‘getting longer and longer’.
The Tories may be frustrated that the Lords and their small majority in the House of Commons are forcing compromises on policy. A government that wants to slash tax credits and cut the National Health Service, must find the democratic process a fantastic bore. But the proposed laws are not just left-wing concerns, they worry lots of people including members of parliament across the political spectrum. Corbyn understood this.
Consider this early exchange when Cameron really got it wrong in his answer on tax credits. The Tories were jeering and Cameron was smirking. He said: ‘In exactly three weeks’ time I will be able to answer that question. If he wants to spend the next five questions asking it all over again, I’m sure he’ll find that very entertaining and interesting, how it fits with the new politics, I’m not quite sure, but over to you.’
‘Mr Speaker, this isn’t about entertainment’, said Corbyn giving his trademark school teacher look. ‘This is not funny for people who are desperately worried about what is going to happen next April.’
It is remembrance Sunday this week, and Corbyn did not hesitate to use it. ‘I have a question’, he said, ‘from Kieran, a veteran of the first gulf war’. He, said Corbyn, had written to him saying he was in ‘fear and trepidation about how we are going to get by’. Is this how the government treats veterans of the armed services?’ A serving private with two children and a partner was set to lose more than £2000 next April he revealed.
This threw Cameron a bit. His attack line – which it took him a minute of two to think up was crude: ‘That serving soldier wouldn’t have a job if the honourable gentleman ever got anywhere near power’.
Cameron’s response to Corbyn’s questions over whether there would be a winter crisis in the NHS this year was equally dismissive, not least because he answered a question Corbyn did not ask about junior doctors and NHS resources.
Cameron was equally foxed by Corbyn’s question: ‘Which is rising faster NHS waiting lists or NHS deficits?’
‘It is the Labour party’, he said, ‘which is facing a winter crisis. He’s appointed a media adviser who is a Stalinist, a policy adviser who is a Trotskyist and an economics adviser who is a communist. If he’s trying to move the Labour party to the left, I’d give him full marks!’
It was not an edifying performance and it allowed Corbyn to play, to great effect, the honest everyman. Even Corbyn’s scrambled grammar – he talked about the NHS being ‘in a problem’ made him seem more genuine.
The other big revelation of prime minister’s questions was that Channel 4 might be privatised. In answer to a question from a Scottish National party MP John Nicolson (East Dumbartonshire), Cameron said that ‘all options’ were on the table ‘including private investment’.
As for Labour, Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) asked about police cuts in Lancashire about which he said there was cross party concern. Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) revealed she went to Cheltenham Ladies college where she said, as at Eton, there was lots of investment in music, dance, arts, and drama – so why had the schools where 93 per cent of the country’s children were educated cut teachers in these subjects?
There were also questions about veteran pensions and the military covenant. Labour MP David Anderson (Blaydon) asked about the lack of compensation for asbestosis for Royal Navy veterans – who are only entitled to £31,000 – whereas those affected because of jobs in private industry were set to get £150,000.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) asked a provocative question about the 633 bravest and best who died ‘as a result of two political mistakes’ in Iraq and Afghanistan. He asked Cameron to rethink his plan to order more soldiers to put their lives on the line in a four-sided civil war in Syria.
This prime minister’s questions was a win of sorts for Corbyn. The whole session 4.
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Sally Gimson is a journalist and councillor in the London borough of Camden. She writes the PMQs on Progress column and tweets @SallyGimson
The ineffectiveness of Cameron in PMQ’s seems to be starting to make the Tory backwoodsmen restive for a change and get Osborne in post.
Osborne? Surely you jest?
Lol self delusion is strange phenomenon, corbyn was awful ands corbs is surrounding himself with a lot of Marxist.
What a silly response.
Albeit an accurate one
Can we eventually hope that even Progress will acknowledge that Corbyn is proving to be a fair more effective Leader of the Opposition – effecting real change on Tax Credits and Syria for instance – than any of the other candidates could possibly have been?
This is clearly an advert and totally irrelevant. I have seen it before. It needs to be blocked!!!!
I think Progress “intelligentsia” is reinventing itself for self preservation!!! So…. softening towards Corbyn [personally] and less antagonistic towards the direction the so-called Labour Left is trying move. It may have to reinvent its stated aims at the foot of the page!:::
“About Progress: Progress, Labour’s new mainstream, aims to promote a radical and progressive politics.”
Clearly Progress is mainstream and conservative (deliberate small c, although some would say it ought to be a capital C!). Hardly new OR radical!!! When I see articles advocating Public Ownership of the utilities, an end to “outsourcing,” Privatisation, anti-austerity, Private bad – Public good, greed is bad, etc. this will be a real shift to “radicalism.” May be the “Bright Young (not now so young) Things at the top of Progress might say that I have a point and be scratching their heads as to what sort of aims it ought to have!!! Having been brought up in Thatcher’s Britain and socialised into her “norms, it will be a hard journey for many of them!!!!”