PMQs: Feed animals in the zoo
“A perfect day.” That’s how Theresa May began PMQs, with a tribute to the joyful atmosphere of the Royal Wedding.
And just as she said it, a voice in the back of my head launched into a rendition of the chorus of Lou Reed’s hit single: “Oooh it’s such a perfect day… you just keep me hanging on.”
Another week, another PMQs, another week of hanging on with Corbyn and May.
Jeremy Corbyn will probably never win a majority and neither will May. Neither can command a broad coalition of support in the country. Neither has the eloquence of a Macron, or dare I say it, a Trump. May and Corbyn seem to be locked in a dire and dreadful embrace by virtue of mutual inadequacy. It’s a recasting of that trope in superhero movies – every hero needs his villain. The Joker to Batman: “I don’t wanna kill you, what would I do without you?”
But there’s no technicolor fight scene, or grand finale, at PMQs every Wednesday at midday. It’s much more boring than that. The weekly slugging match resembles Joseph Conrad’s Marlow as he wrestles with death: “It’s the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place in an impalpable greyness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamour, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat, in a sickly atmosphere of tepid skepticism, without much belief in your own right, and still less in that of your adversary.”
That’s basically convincing isn’t it? That sounds like May v Corbyn?
Anyway, well, enough of that. Corbyn asked all six questions on the NHS, going full throttle on the issue of outsourcing to private health providers.
He started: “In 2010, four billion pounds of NHS services were outsourced to private companies – how much is it today?”
May came back with New Labour’s record on accelerating outsourcing. Corbyn reiterated that he was talking about the record of the current government. A slight rhetorical flounder – he needn’t have addressed May’s evasion. He’s obviously nothing to do with New Labour and doesn’t need to defend their record. In four of the 13 years of Labour administration from 1997, Corbyn was top of the charts for voting against the Labour whip.
Corbyn then got onto firmer ground. The Tories had created a “jackpot for the privateers” and had put “private profit before public service”. It might be hokum (the NHS would be in even deeper trouble without the limited attempts at outsourcing of the past decade), but it’s powerful stuff and it plays into a general sense in the country that the Tories are in the business of deconstructing the public realm.
May went into auto-pilot mode, reiterating Tory commitments to hiring more GPs and increased spending. It’s not terribly bold: the funding squeeze of the past 8 years has been pretty severe, with waiting times up across the board – it will take more than piddling cash injections to fix that.
She eventually came back with a bold attack line, refocusing the debate onto the broader culture war going on between the far-Left Labour leadership and free market ideology – McDonnell and Corbyn would fail the NHS because they want to “overthrow capitalism”, which would mean higher taxes, more debt and fewer jobs. This is where the Labour Party “really stand on this issue”.
Who benefits from this stuff? Certainly not those in need of urgent care, who are being failed by an NHS that is not meeting basic standards of good health provision. It’s fun saying that Corbyn et al are a bunch of charlatans, but to the casual observer, are May et al any better?
But they just keep each other hanging on, just failing to deliver the fatal blow. And so every Wednesday, Corbyn and May join hands, and sing together: “It’s such a perfect day, I’m glad I spent it with you.” As far as the rest of us are concerned, the situation is far from perfect.