Theresa May should have had a rather difficult Prime Minister’s Questions today. Jeremy Corbyn chose to lead on the visit of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, and then moved onto rough sleeping. Both matters are vulnerabilities for May, and ones Corbyn has consistently made a great deal of noise about.
But there were two flaws in Corbyn’s approach which allowed May to have one of her strongest sessions as Prime Minister. The first was that of course she had guessed the Labour leader was most likely to lead on Saudi Arabia, and so she turned up well-prepared to offer a robust defence of Britain’s ties with the Kingdom. She also accused Corbyn of ‘mansplaining’ by telling her when International Women’s Day was, before saying:
‘The link that we have with Saudi Arabia is historic, it is an important one, and it has saved, it has saved the lives of potentially hundreds of people in this country and can I say that actually the fact that it is an important link is not just the view that I hold.
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