Theresa May should be content with today’s PMQs, because it could easily have gone a lot worse for her. Once again, the PM’s best friend in politics today is Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour leader attracts a lot of attention for his ideology, his principles and ideas, much of it critical. Less attention is paid to his basic competence, his mastery (or otherwise) of the basic skills of politics that matter regardless of your ideas. Those skills include marshaling an argument that discomforts and exposes your opponent’s vulnerability. Corbyn isn’t very good at that. Today he failed to concentrate his questions to May on the most vital aspects of the NHS performance crisis (especially A&E admissions), and to properly follow up on the PM’s clanging dismissal of problems there as “a small number of incidents”. A more nimble performer would have seized the opportunity that remark offered. Corbyn missed it. Corbyn’s limitations often raise the question: what would politics look like today if Labour had a fully competent or even impressive leader? How much trouble would May be in then? She’s a Conservative PM with a wafer-thin majority presiding over an NHS that’s having its worst winter in recent history and, in the account of its own chief executive, doesn’t have the money it needs to function. T hat can**t be a comfortable position, and Conservative MPs k**w it: there were glum, serious faces on the benches behind May today. Corbyn’s failure to make the most of the chances he is given is a mi**r comfort to Conservatives, but it can’t change the fact that the NHS is turning into a major political problem for May. If she doesn’t get a grip on the health service story soon, even the Labour leader’s bumbling will **t save her from the consequences.
01-12-2017, 05:34 AM
Is NHS a real problem for Theresa May?
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