Damian Green came under pressure to defend the government’s Brexit plans, after shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry asked if the government are making it up as they’re going along” at Prime Minister’s Questions.
Thornberry and Green, the first secretary of state, were standing in for Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn, the former kept busy by a state visit by the king and queen of Spain.
Our readers felt Thornberry comfortably won the exchange, as she pressed Green for specifics over the possibility of Britain walking away from negotiations. She was assured that the government planned “to ensure that we get the best deal for Britain”
Below, we share a relection of readers’ takes on PMQs.
Thornberry asked the right questions
The Tory benches are split
Thornberry - "The prime minister has taken to putting suggestion boxes around parliament. "
Best line for me, and audibly stalled the Conservative benches braying. There's a split on the tory benches here on the issue of reaching out, that should be worked on more.
Thornberry could be a big hitter
Since the 'white van man' tweet - Emily Thornberry has been really impressive whenever I've seen her. She clearly does her homework and has a nice turn of phrase. If she could look a little less pleased with herself at all times then she really could be a big hitter in the party for a long time to come. She's certainly got many good qualities to be a front line politician, good for her and good for Labour.
The jokes weren’t appropriate
Wish Thornberry would cut out the jokes , she is a stand in not stand up.
She did push Green quite well though and showed up the complete mess the Govt are making with the EU.
To be fair to her the "suggestion box " joke was pretty good.
The Brexit nuclear option?
Damian Green unwisely uses unilateral disarmament slur to deride Labour's position on Brexit - implying that the Tories are prepared to use some kind of invented nuclear option in the negs.
The government is evasive over Brexit
It appears not to matter a damn who is performing at PMQ for the tories. Their respnse to any questions about brexit is completely evasive and indicative of the sheer chaos the government is in over this issue. Admittedly they appear to be in chaos over most issues, however this is meant to be the central issue for this government.
PMQs is out of touch
Very disappointed in PMQs. Get the impression (leaving aside the braying schoolkids on the Tory benches) that here we have people who could walk away from political life with comfortable pensions and don't really get just how concerned the rest of us are for our wellbeing in every sense.
I have some sympathy for Green
Some sympathy with Green having to defend the Tories plan or lack of it for brexit when he thinks it a fundamentally stupid idea to leave the European union in the first place.
Good performance from Thornberry. Relevant questions about the Tories' "no deal" stance and its potential consequences, asked with self-confidence and the right level of aggressiveness.
Green on the other hand was pretty lame. Not engaging with the question and continuous harping on about the unemployment figures. This is the usual Tory shtick: celebrating figures that are far from the reality of people and mean nothing. Or they mean something else than what people think. For example in the case of unemployment figures: more insecure low-wage jobs.