PMQs began with a tussle over Universal Credit. Jeremy Corbyn’s team of wordsmiths and brainstormers had spent the morning ransacking a thesaurus for words meaning ‘destructive’. They found ‘broken, damaging, dangerous, callous, cruel, punitive and vicious.’ They added ‘very cruel’ for good measure.
These were the labels Corbyn applied to Universal Credit. ‘It should go,’ he urged. As for ‘very cruel’, he spoke of ‘the very cruel and callous two-child limit which caps benefits for larger families.’ Now that Britain’s parents have received this warning, they can avoid the ‘very cruel’ cap by capping their fecundity.
Boris replied with a set of cheerful statistics about economic growth and rising employment. He swerved off-piste to quote a poll revealing that a hefty chunk of Labour members consider Corbyn ‘the most popular Labour leader ever’.
‘That sentiment,’ gloated the PM, ‘is warmly shared by many on this side.’ Not a great joke. A bit too prepared.
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