Politics is Great Britain
By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor
It was Corbyn’s comeback from long-term injury, the awkward left-winger had an open goal over the junior doctors’ strike, he flicked the ball into the air, with an intricate overhead kick he scored, and ran into the cheering crowd.
Corbyn said, “Would you agree that the only people in the UK who you couldn’t crush for striking is the predominately middle class, highly educated and crucially able to save your life, junior doctors, and the country stands with them?” The PM floundered; everyone likes doctors, even the mid-market newspapers.
In desperation Cameron turned to Jeremy Hunt, whose smug face and weird facial expression, like he has seen a pair of naked breasts for the first time, looked at the floor rather than at a tit. For the first time since his shock transfer Corbyn could smell total victory over Cameron. It had taken the intellectual elite of the medical profession to kick start his path to socialism.
Ok, I’ll come clean none of this happened, Corbyn and the entire opposition mysteriously failed to mention the junior doctors’ strike at all. Perhaps they didn’t want to make a political football out of the issue, but seeing as how literally everything Corbyn does, down to his choice of xmas card, is used against him, surely he could have got some traction out of the medical profession’s crisis. It was a poor strike out of a poor strike.
Instead he used all his questions to attack the Government’s housing policy, which aims to bulldoze 140 housing estates. Hopefully not in an Arthur Dent style, but probably with the same consequences.
I guess in our hearts we all know these tenants will be evicted from their communities and will never return to the “affordable homes” built on the site, and the PM pretty much accepted that today. He didn’t explicitly say so, but most people have learnt from his non-answers, what his real decision is. Corbyn also pointed out that only 2% of these “affordable homes” will actually be affordable if you are on the living wage. What is the Government’s category below “affordable housing,” shared ownership, right-to-buy, pure fantasy apartments?
I travel through Elephant and Castle most mornings, which is an unbridled joy, where the local authority – owned Heygate Estate once stood and is now being replaced with “Elephant Park.” Aside from working in the inevitable LittleWaitrose, slotted into the commercial units beneath the million pound apartments, the previous residents won’t be returning there any time soon.
However, it is still a fight worth fighting of course, but not today, the day after the first doctors’ strike in living memory. Corbyn turned up with his right football kit, but at the wrong ground.
Sycophantic question of the day
Opposite actually, Craig Whittaker, Con, banged on about Todmorden High School (he once mounted a rooftop protest there to try and get more funding) and Dr Tania Mathias, Con, had a pop about air pollution; what she really meant was don’t you DARE build a new runway at Heathrow and annoy the good (and very affluent) people of Twickenham.
Winner
Angus Roberston, SNP, for the very reason that he is so boring nobody can be bothered to listen to his questions, which makes me think they might actually be a genius, if they were delivered by, oh I don’t know, Alex Salmond.
