How do you unite the Labour party and cheer them up? Today the party’s MPs were cheering happily and laughing along at the jokes offered from their Dispatch Box for the first time in months. And on Monday, they managed to have a cheerful meeting of the parliamentary Labour party. One thing that was missing from both sessions was Jeremy Corbyn.
The cheer that accompanied Angela Eagle as she got to her feet to ask her first question of George Osborne, who was standing in for David Cameron, was full and sincere. And though she didn’t have a particularly devastating series of questions – she managed to meander through the Tory bullying scandal, Osborne’s leadership ambitions and the renegotiation in one long question – she certainly gave the Chamber the sense of energetic debate that it has lacked recently.
She started by asking the Chancellor about flood defences, with additional barracking from former Shadow Environment Secretary Mary Creagh on the backbenches. Osborne, as he always does, made the point that the only way the government could afford to spend more on flood defences was because of its handling of the economy. In the end, she ended up thanking him for his response on the matter and pledging to hold the government to account on its promises on flood defences.
Eagle then started playing for laughs, ending a question about the Prime Minister’s renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with Europe with a casual and confident ‘how’s it all going?’ The House enjoyed this – and Osborne’s response that ‘the good news is we have a party leader who is respected abroad!’ It then descended into paroxysms of laughter when Eagle, with perfect delivery, accused Osborne of worrying about the leadership ambitions of ‘somebody a few places down him on the bench’. Everyone turned to look at Theresa May, as Eagle stood swaying a little like a boxer who has just delivered a knockout blow. ‘She knows who she is!’ added Eagle. Labour MPs roared with laughter.
Osborne got through the session well enough, but he didn’t seem as quick on his feet as his opponent, and tripped himself up by quoting Tony Blair’s Spectator piece, which allowed Eagle to use another Blair quote as a riposte: ‘Just mouth the words “five more Tory years” and you find your senses and reason repulsed by what they’ve done to our country.’
The Chancellor did, though, have a good point when he told Eagle she should be using her questions to probe him on the NHS and other serious matters. Her stint at the Dispatch Box seemed aimed at Labour MPs, rather than at making Labour a serious party of scrutiny for one week at least.
Listen to the full audio here:
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