Key points
Jeremy Corbyn quizzed May on her abandonment as home secretary of an inquiry into the battle of Orgreave during the miners’ strike in 1984, home ownership rates and the record of her new foreign secretary, Boris Johnson. In a memorable exchange on austerity, Corbyn asked if the long-term economic plan was dead and if there was a new one. May responded: “He calls it austerity, I call it living within our means.”
Snap verdict
Theresa May continues to surprise us. We were told that she does not do jokes, but the highlight of her first exchange with Corbyn at PMQs was a sustained, comic analogy that ended with May dropping her voice and saying: “Remind him of anybody?” in a tone that made her sound just like Margaret Thatcher. We never knew impressions were among her talents. It was a rather funny joke, but unsettling, and it jarred slightly because it was out of character.
If Corbyn thought that the removal of David Cameron would spare him from scorn, he will have been disappointed. May is not as insulting as Cameron, but she delivered several withering put-downs in a PMQs that will be judged a success. For Corbyn, this was always going to be tricky, because May has the goodwill of Tory MPs behind her. He was right to identify some wide gaps between the rhetoric in May’s “one nation” Downing Street speech last week, and the government’s record, but his scattergun approach meant that he never highlighted these effectively.
Starting with a question on Orgeave was odd, too. For the public at large, this is an obscure piece of history, but it is a subject that matters to Labour and union members, and so perhaps this illustrated how the leadership contest is already dominating his thinking.
Most memorable lines
May mocked Corbyn’s question on unscrupulous bosses:
A boss who doesn’t listen to his workers, a boss who asks workers to double their workload, a boss who exploits the rules?
Then, lowering her tone and slowing her words in an uncanny Thatcheresque fashion, she added:
Remind him of anybody?
For more on PMQs and the day’s politics, read our politics live blog with Andrew Sparrow.
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