How Rishi Sunak outshone Corbyn’s five years in one speech

If Jeremy Corbyn had been saving his energy by giving a poor performance at PMQs, he wasn’t saving it for his Budget response. He sounded bored, almost as though he too is fed up of waiting for the Labour leadership contest to trundle to an end so that he can pack off and not have to respond to economic statements. Beside him, John McDonnell looked a little envious that the final big fiscal event of the duo’s time at the top of the party was the one Corbyn got to respond to, rather than the Shadow Chancellor. He even failed to notice that the debate was being chaired – as it always is – by the deputy speaker Eleanor Laing, and spent much of his speech referring to ‘Mr Speaker’.