One of the older rules in politics is to accuse your opponent of your own failings. Thus, at Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday, the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn accused Theresa May of reneging on her election promises. ‘She talked tough but was it just for the election campaign?’ he asked.
He referred to the Tories’ ‘dumped manifesto’. He said of Mrs May, with all the shock of a dowager exposed to a flasher, ‘she’s gone back on her word!’
He insisted, primly: ‘She should stick to her own manifesto promises.’
Ha! There he was, the man who had just reversed his own party’s policy on Brexit, the man who had reneged on his election promise to students to deal with their fee-debt problems, and he was accusing his opponent of going back on her word. Classico.
It turns out Old Compo is as blatant at this two-faced game as any of his predecessors. He really is a slimy Establishment politician, after all
Those of us who thought Mr Corbyn lacked the casual dishonesty of normal party leaders may need to reconsider our view.
It turns out Old Compo is as blatant at this two-faced game as any of his predecessors.
He really is a slimy Establishment politician, after all.
Same old, same old, another disillusioneer, another Westminster slalom artiste set to break the hearts of all those voters who thought he was refreshingly different.
Prime Minister’s Questions started three minutes late because the Speaker kept Welsh Questions dragging past midday.
Speaker Bercow makes it a small point of control and self-importance to ignore the convention that PMQs lasts half an hour from midday. In the same way, he made the House listen to almost an hour of questions about Burma on Monday.
Hundreds of MPs thus were left, twiddling their thumbs as they waited for a Brexit debate that was to follow. No one is any longer much surprised by Bercow’s petty-mindedness. It comes with the country. MPs simply regard him with casual weariness, an obsessive with a tall opinion of himself.
Mrs May, who lacks the despatch box ruthlessness of David Cameron, kept letting Mr Corbyn get away with his hypocritical accusations that she was reneging on manifesto promises
The session, when it finally began, opened with Mrs May expressing sympathy for victims of the Barcelona terrorist attack several weeks ago.
Mr Corbyn, who is ace at moral one-upmanship, went several steps further by expressing sympathy for the flood victims in Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Sierra Leone and Texas, and those who are about to be battered by Hurricane Irma in the Caribbean.
I wonder if the Leader of the Opposition in Sierra Leone ever stops to ask his country’s parliament to pray for flood victims in, say, Cumbria.
PMQs passed without much incident. Mrs May, who lacks the despatch box ruthlessness of David Cameron, kept letting Mr Corbyn get away with his hypocritical accusations that she was reneging on manifesto promises.
Maybe she preferred not to argue with him over Brexit because it might have made Labour Eurosceptics less keen to rebel against their party Whip.
But eventually she did point out that whereas Labour had promised to support Britain’s nuclear deterrent, Mr Corbyn was said to remain opposed to the policy. He was Labour leader but, she said, ‘he doesn’t support Labour policy’.
The SNP’s Westminster leader, Ian Blackford, has yet to crack the PMQs challenge.
He opened his remarks by saying, ‘does the Prime Minister agree with me…?’ Then a fatal pause. It allowed Tory MPs to shout: ‘No!’ Laughter.
After that, Mr Blackford was punctured and lost air.
He might do well not to lean back and lift his head so much when he is speaking. Like a schoolboy cricketer, he needs to get his head over the ball.
Barrel-chested Tory backbencher Alex Shelbrooke (Elmet & Rothwell) has another three-piece suit, this time brown with a hanky in the top pocket.
What a natty dresser he is. And Mohammad Yasin (Lab, Bedford) asked a question which jibbered in such a staccato voice – he was perhaps nervous – that many Hon Members looked at one another as if so say ‘huh?’
Apparently the question was about railway services. If you say so. But Mr Yasin is even more incomprehensible than the average Great Western carriage announcement.