Key points
Whereas Jeremy Corbyn has been accused of failing to expose the divisions in the Tory party over Europe, this PMQs, between the leaders’ respective stand-ins, was a competition over whose MPs were more divided.
Angela Eagle challenged George Osborne over the tax arrangements for Google, whose Paris offices were raided by police on Tuesday. Osborne responded that his government had done more to tackle tax evasion than Labour did. Eagle in turned accused him of complacency.
Eagle then accused the Tories of descending into “vicious acrimony” over Europe, with Osborne responding with a challenge about Labour’s divisions over the replacement of Trident.
Snap verdict
A solid win for Eagle. In truth, she has given much better performances at the dispatch box, but she swung punches on a range of topics, and most of them landed with some force. It was a traditional approach to PMQs and will do a lot for the morale of Labour MPs, whom Corbyn has given little to cheer on Wednesday afternoons recently. Osborne, who was acceptable but no better, tried taunting Eagle over Trident, but she parried that very effectively with a “bring it on” comment about the Trident vote. And, significantly, Eagle attacked the Tories over their EU referendum divisions, which Corbyn has barely mentioned from the dispatch box. She illustrated quite how much potential there is for party-political point-scoring in the EU debate, although quite what this does for the cross-party remain campaign is another matter.
Best lines
Eagle accused the Tory leadership of “banishing” the leave campaign from the frontbench. When it was pointed out that Gove, a leading voice in the leave campaign, was in fact present she pointed out that the justice secretary was “in detention” in the corner, rather than his usual central position.
Osborne accused Labour of a series of U-turns and, referring to the strategy Blair deployed to woo business leaders, said Labour had turned its back on industry:
The prawn cocktail offensive is just plain offensive these days.
