The job share Prime Minister Jeremy Corbyn did not have to work very hard at PMQs today.
Having asked for his help with Brexit and, in the eyes of Tory MPs, granted the Labour leader an unwanted credibility, Theresa May was hardly in a position to repeat her attack seven days ago when she branded him a threat to national security.
Mr Corbyn made a brief mention of Brexit at the top of his first question when he craftily welcomed the Prime Minister’s “willingness to compromise.
Intriguingly, Mrs May did not demur with this assessment.
The Labour leader then switched to asking about the rise in poverty under Mrs May’s time in office.
The Prime Minister’s reply was characteristically pedestrian but her delivery was halting and unconvincing.
To a notable lack of support from her own benches, she repeatedly stumbled over her words as she failed to explain why in child poverty had increased on her watch.
When Corbyn widened his attack to raise a “stealth cut” to the pensioner credit Mrs May’s reply was equally feeble.
She could only counter by referring to Gordon Brown’s 75p pension rise, an admittedly low point in the former Chancellor’s time in the Treasury but one which took place 20 years’ ago.
The Prime Minister recovered some of her composure in her final response when she defended her Government’s record but her claim they were ‘delivering world-class public services’ roamed into the world of fantasy.
Mr Corbyn’s commitment to fighting social injustice is not in doubt but his choice of questions, which reminded his MPs of the clear divisions between the two parties, may have been designed to provide some cover for this afternoon’s talks with the Prime Minister.
While Corbyn got the better of the exchanges the real difficulty for Mrs May came from her Brexiteer backbenchers who peppered her with stinging questions on why she was now willing to work with a man she had branded a threat to our standing in the world.
In order to defend her decision the PM was obliged to launch a personal attack on the Labour leader which is hardly the ideal basis for any constructive talks.
