Today is the first real test of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. At midday, it’s assumed he will take his place on the front bench for his first session of Prime Minister’s Questions with David Cameron. PMQs is the central event of the political week and today’s session is even more anticipated than usual. For the first time, the Tories have the opportunity to put their ‘security’ concerns directly at the new opposition leader — will they stick? Will Corbyn brush them off or fail to effectively respond? There is also a challenge for the Prime Minister because he is dealing with such an unknown quantity. Will Cameron be serious and respectful, or punchy and loud? His ‘Flashman’ persona is unlikely to score any points against Corbyn.
No one quite knows how Corbyn is going to play it either: he has promised to remove the personal element and ‘hold this government to account together with straight-talking, honest politics’. But will that work in a Commons chamber full of excitable MPs from both parties? He has also put up a form on Labour’s website, to allow the public to submit questions for him to put to Cameron. Reportedly 30,000 questions have come in so far — we’ll see if Corbyn is going to become the conduit for turning PMQs into a phone in show for disgruntled voters.
But Corbyn will have to get used to the shouting and braying. Some of the Tories’ departmental support groups are betting that Corbyn will be ‘disorientated’ at the Dispatch Box today, having never spoken from this part of the chamber, and plan to heckle and jeer him throughout to further exacerbate his unease. As Isabel explained in the magazine recently, these support groups are filled with ambitious young things who want to curry favour with George Osborne and other party grandees. Destabilising Corbyn’s first PMQs is an effective way of doing this.
And if Corbyn has any doubt about the challenge facing him today, this is what his predecessor Tony Blair — an notably accomplished PMQs performer — said in his memoirs about the Wednesday sessions:
‘PMQs was the most nerve-racking, discombobulating, nail-biting, bowelmoving, terror-inspiring, courage-draining experience in my prime ministerial life, without question. You know that scene in Marathon Man where the evil Nazi doctor played by Laurence Olivier drills through Dustin Hoffman’s teeth? At around 11.45 on Wednesday mornings, I would have swapped 30 minutes of PMQs for 30 minutes of that.’
Given Corbyn’s laid back persona, it only seems a matter of time until he finds at least one thing in common with Blair.
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