Britain's new Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn took aim at parliamentary ritual on Wednesday in his first official confrontation with British prime minister David Cameron, saying he wanted the voices of ordinary people to be heard.
Mr Corbyn, elected leader of the Labour party at the weekend, said Prime Minister’s Questions, a weekly verbal joust when arguments over policy are often reduced to pithy, sometimes personal, barbs, was theatrical and “out of touch”.
Mr Corbyn said he wanted to change how the questioning session, more commonly known as PMQs, was conducted. Rather than MPs asking questions, he had asked people to pose questions to the prime minister and said he received 40,000 responses.
“Many told me that they thought that Prime Minister’s Question time was too theatrical, that parliament was out of touch and too theatrical, and that they wanted things done differently, and above all they wanted their voice heard in parliament,” Mr Corbyn told a packed parliament, where some MPs were forced to stand on the stairs.
The prime minister welcomed the change in tone, telling his new Labour adversary that “no-one would be more delighted than me” if PMQs could become a “genuine exercise in asking questions and answering questions”.
He congratulated Mr Corbyn on his “resounding victory” and welcomed him to the frontbench, adding: “I know we will have many strong disagreements, I’m sure, between us at these exchanges but where we can work together in the national interest we should do so and I wish him well in his job.”
One by one, Mr Corbyn read out queries from Marie on housing, Steven on rents, Paul on tax credits, Claire on benefit thresholds, and Gail and Angela on mental health.
‘More adult way’
Mr Corbyn thanked Mr Cameron for his commitment to answering questions “in a more adult way than it’s been done in the past”.
But the Conservative leader did not entirely resist the opportunity to go on the attack, repeatedly warning that the high-quality public services which Mr Corbyn demanded would not be affordable without a strong economy.
“We will not have a strong NHS unless we have a strong economy, and if the Labour Party is going to go down the route of unlimited spending, unlimited borrowing, unlimited tax rates, printing money, they will wreck the economic security of our country and the family security of every family in our country,” Mr Cameron said.
“We won’t be able to afford a strong NHS without a strong economy.”
In response to the prime minister saying he did not want Britain to become a place where people did not want to work, Mr Corbyn said some needed welfare and that providing it was the “decent, civil thing“ to do.
Labour MPs congratulated Mr Corbyn, with some praising him for deflating his Conservative opponents, who often try to score points from the opposition with well-timed barbs.
Mr Cameron was bolstered when he became leader of the Conservative Party in 2005 in his first exchange when he told the then prime minister, Tony Blair, that he had been "the future once".
But a misplaced comment can backfire. Mr Cameron was criticised for once telling a female MP to “Calm down, dear!“ during an exchange, drawing accusations of sexism.
“Jeremy‘s style today and the substance of his questions definitely spoiled the Tories‘ fun. He kept it on the real issues, it was a good first outing,“ Labour lawmaker Wes Streeting said.
PA/Reuters