When Ed Miliband was asking the questions at PMQs, we didn’t think we were living through a vintage age of parliamentary debate. But every week, Miliband’s performances looks better by comparison.
Jeremy Corbyn went on the right topic today, the NHS, but his questions were all over the place and lacked coherence. Indeed, at one point it was hard to tell what the actual question was. But, I suspect, that Labour will feel that if Corbyn has managed to bump the NHS up the agenda ahead of the two by-elections on Thursday, then it will have been a worthwhile exercise. But it is telling that any advantage Labour gained from the session came not from Corbyn chivvying information out of Theresa May, but just the obvious topic that he and his team decided to go on.
Everyone was waiting today to see if any Tory MP would ask about business rates. They didn’t, so the schools funding formula is still responsible for the most difficult questions May receives from her own side. But the Green Leader Caroline Lucas did ask May about them. In response, she struck a conciliatory note and said that she had asked Hammond and Javid to look at the possibility of extra help for those hardest hit by the rates change. But afterwards Number 10 were clear that this didn’t mean more money going in to soften the changes, but that May simply wanted the relief to go to those hardest hit. That, though, won’t satisfy those campaigning against the changes.
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