Oliver Dowden had 20 years and four Tory leaders to prepare him for his understudy moment at PMQs. He’s helped a series of leaders work out their attack lines, their defences and their jokes – so it’s unsurprising that his chance at the despatch box sparring with Angela Rayner was so textbook that he should probably offer it in a seminar on a Skills in Politics Course for aspiring Tory leaders. It was anatomically perfect: there was the opening joke about the opposition (‘I was, though, expecting to face the Labour leader’s choice for deputy prime minister if they win the election, so I’m surprised that the Lib Dem leader isn’t taking questions today’) and a compliment to his opponent about what a pleasure it was to be facing her.
Dowden defended his party’s record on the NHS and child poverty, saying he was ‘proud’ to do so.
There was a jibe about Angela Rayner’s support for Jeremy Corbyn and another memorable zeitgeist comparison about she and Keir Starmer being the ‘Phil and Holly of British politics’ because they’re ‘at each other’s throats’.
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