Boris Johnson came up early in PMQs. The Cabinet’s new ‘shadow chancellor’ has called for extra money – five billion quid – to be lavished on the NHS. Jeremy Corbyn asked Mrs May if she agreed. She dustily replied that the real chancellor had promised more than five billion last autumn. He’d pledged six!
Six billion didn’t satisfy Mr Corbyn. He called the Prime Minister out by cutting her pledge in half and subtracting £200m. This gave £2.8bn which, he, said, had been ‘spread like thin gruel over two years.’
Good word, gruel. Evocative of prison-hulks and Dickensian poor-houses. It adds colour to Labour’s dream-picture of the Tories as a set of stuck-up, over-privileged, fox-hunting tramp-stranglers.
Mr Corbyn then delivered a revelation about the NHS. This originated from some hard-working A&E doctors who published a letter noting that patients have died on trolleys in hospital corridors.
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