TODAY (October 14), with the party conferences done and dusted for another year, MPs will be back on the green benches to witness David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn in the long-running slugfest known as Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs).
The new Labour leader promised to do what he could to change the way PMQs is conducted. Selecting his first six questions from 40,000 suggestions sent to him by people outside the Westminster loop was a start. Will he now encourage other members of Labour's front bench team to participate in the weekly ritual, with questions direct to the Prime Minister? This, we are told, is just one of many “new” ideas the Leader of the Opposition would like to explore.
Perhaps he is unaware that not so long ago, this is exactly how PMQs were conducted. As Tam Dalyell recorded in his 1987 book Misrule, when he was first elected to the House of Commons and Harold Macmillan was in Downing Street, if the leader of the opposition intervened at all, 'it was a newsworthy matter of weight'.
Harold Wilson, when he succeeded Hugh Gaitskell as Leader of the Opposition in 1963, chose his interventions with care, according to Mr Dalyell. “You could hear a pin drop. And this was infinitely more dangerous for vulnerable prime ministers than the contemporary hullabaloo.”
Less to Mr Wilson's credit, perhaps, Mr Dalyell, who retired undefeated in 2005 after 43 years as a Labour MP, blamed him for “starting the rot” which finished with the Prime Minister taking on all-comers at the despatch box. “Harold,” said Dalyell, “would insist on showing off how much he knew about every facet of government.”
Mr Corbyn's motives for wishing to change the existing format are bound to be questioned. However, in this, as in other matters, it may be the new man at the despatch box, and not the Prime Minister, who is in tune with majority public opinion.
A study for the Hansard Society, conducted last year, found 67 per cent of the electorate believe PMQs, as presently conducted, involves “too much political point scoring”.
It will be exactly a month to the day since the pair's not-so-bruising first encounter at the despatch box. Can the Prime Minister win round two by a knock-out? Will he be satisfied if his inexperienced opponent is still on his feet at the finish? What are the chances of “southpaw” Mr Corbyn landing a sucker punch that wipes that aggravating smirk from his over-confident opponent's face?
We need to remember the venue is the Palace of Westminster and not Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. Either way, though, this is no booth fight. And no matter how long it takes, and whichever way the contest is conducted, only one of them will be left standing at the finish.
We already know the Prime Minister won't be around for the next General Election. He told us so. On the other hand, Jeremy Corbyn, on the strength of his astonishing win in the Labour Party leadership contest, should be.
Russell Galbraith,
73 Norwood Park, Bearsden.
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