Before I proceed I’ll quickly give you May’s Brexit update, from any referendum related questions she faced, during today’s session, drum roll please…she will be getting the best deal for the UK in the upcoming negotiations. Now we can all breathe a sigh of relief.
There was also a misunderstanding about who had given birth to a baby, and that appeared to be the funniest thing since A Fish Called Wanda was released. If you want any more information on these japes, you’ll have to go elsewhere, soz.
Today Jeremy Corbyn went in hard on the planned cuts to welfare, you can tell the Tories know it’s not fair as they squirm in their seats when he talks about it. Corbyn mentioned the Centre for Social Justice, Sheffield Hallam University and Oxford University studies which all concluded that people will suffer due to these benefit cuts. The sad thing is we don’t listen to these experts anymore. These days It’s all about “feeling” whether benefits cuts make people worse off.
Corbyn then urged Theresa May to go and see Ken Loach’s new film I, Daniel Blake and to take Damian Green, the Work and Pensions Secretary, with her. Green had called the film “monstrously unfair,” over its portrayal of job centre staff. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but he hasn’t seen the film, so actually, in this case, no he isn’t.
I saw the film on Monday, after a weekend of solid drinking (not big or clever) so not the best time to watch a Ken loach film, but then what day is?
Poor fictional Daniel, but based on hundreds of case studies, lives in Byker and I’m from just down the road, and used to go into the Job Centre just off Shield’s Road, as a wayward youth, I have kind of sorted myself out now.
To be fair the staff tried their best, in fact one of my mates ended up dating a girl who he went into meet for a job seekers interview, and the people who worked there were not rich people. I wouldn’t be surprised if Job Centre staff are close to accessing in-work benefits themselves.
The point is there is a fine line between those who struggle by and those who are working poor. Over the last few years the two have merged as the number of people in in-work benefits has risen sharply.
More and more people are in work than ever before, but they might well be getting squeezed by May’s upcoming in-work benefit cuts.
If the PM isn’t careful the people who are currently paying into the welfare pot might soon be taking from it. Like in the new Loach film, May is the decision maker and the people she is appealing to might not like what she has got to say.
Sycophantic question of the day
David Warburton, who bragged his constituency has the most cows of any in Britain and milked it (boom boom) by asking May to pop down to Somerset for a chuck of cheddar and some cider. However, all I could think of was Alan Partridge shouting “smell my cheese.”
Winner
Jeremy Corbyn, but special mention to Theresa May for saying that FIFA should “jolly well get its house in order,” before they start telling us what to do.
It was the perfect blend of stern and patronising, and I can’t help think she would be better off as a Deputy Headmistress at one of those Grammar schools she dearly loves, rather than PM.