Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

PMQs Sketch: Theresa May torpedoes Jeremy Corbyn in six syllables

Today we saw government without opposition. At least without opposition in the hands of the Opposition leader. Rambling, disorganised Jeremy Corbyn spent his six questions getting nowhere over the health service. Familiar catcalls were heard on both sides. ‘You wasted billions.’ ‘No we invested billions.’ Mrs May attempted to break the record-book by insisted that ‘half a trillion’ will be spent on health during this parliament.

Corbyn’s backbenchers took up the cause. The Labour party is teeming with broken princes and queens-across-the-water who spend their time brooding, and muttering, and plotting their route back to power. Any chance to expose Corbyn as a waffling nuisance is happily seized.

Lisa Nandy lobbed a carefully-worded challenge at Mrs May over her handling of the child sex abuse enquiry. Since April this shambles has worked through more bosses than the England football team.

Jamie Reed begged the PM to prevent doctors being sacked at his local hospital as their removal may endanger lives.

Lucy Powell used a killer-statistic to undermine Mrs May’s plan to revive grammar schools. Another sitter missed by Corbyn.

Stephen Pound urged the PM to support community pharmacies and she referred him straight back to his leader’s policy: nationalise them. Corbyn at this point was languishing sideways, head-in-air, studying an interesting cobweb as if he were a museum orderly waiting to go off-shift. Has he even heard of community pharmacies?

Maria Eagle’s postbag bulges with letters from distressed beneficiaries of tax-credits. The system is descending into farce because the rules award money to cohabiting couples at a different rate from celibates. And the officials, perhaps a little bored with their work, like to imagine that everyone living at a single address is embroiled in a non-stop polyamorous orgy.

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