Jeremy Corbyn now has more experience of responding to Budgets than the Chancellor of the Exchequer who he stood opposite today. So did the Labour leader offer a good response to Philip Hammond’s statement today? The answer will depend on how you evaluate Budget responses. If you’re expecting the Leader of the Opposition to look like a Prime Minister in waiting, then you’re expecting too much. If you’re measuring him against his own record, which remains largely that of an obscure and unimpressive backbencher who was never promoted for very good reasons, then this was a passable Budget response.
It’s been a few years since we had a decent Budget response, to be fair. Ed Miliband struggled to make his mark – though the Tories were actually bothered enough by his presence to organise heckling of the Labour leader, while they only half-heartedly chuntered today. The usual disclaimer applies that these responses are difficult because you haven’t had any time to go through the detail that trips a government up and you are trying to update your speech as the Chancellor gives his.
But Corbyn didn’t seem to have done much of that live updating of his speech. It was more a picture of how bad Britain was for many people and how the Chancellor hadn’t done anything for these people. Even just a few lines here and there to reflect the fact that Corbyn had listened to the speech but objected to certain claims in it – such as updating his complaint that refuges for victims of domestic violence are closing with an acknowledgement that the Chancellor did announce more funding for victims of this crime – would have given the Labour leader’s Dickensian picture of Britain a feeling that it was up-to-date.
Budget responses are less pointless than the Prime Minister’s Questions that comes before the economic statement. In both cases today the leader of the Opposition simply wasn’t quick enough on his feet to make the most of the material he had been given.
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