PMQs: “The Tory promise to end austerity can’t even fool their own councillors”

“Never, ever believe what you hear from central government: austerity is not over.” Those sound like the words of a Labour frontbencher – Richard Burgon, perhaps, who has written for LabourList today about the impact austerity has had on prisons, law centres and the wider justice system. But Jeremy Corbyn was actually quoting Mike Bird, the Conservative leader of Walsall Council, who says austerity is “live and kicking” despite Theresa May’s claims at Tory conference last month that the cuts have ended.

It wasn’t just Walsall, either. The Labour leader followed up his first question to the Prime Minister with a quote from Derby’s Tory council leader, who said their financial outlook is “extremely challenging with government austerity measures confirmed as continuing”. Those helpful admissions allowed Corbyn to quip: “They promised to end austerity, but they can’t even fool their own councillors.”

The Prime Minister’s response to those excellent, sharp questions was confused. On the one hand, May repeated her claims. “People need to know their hard work has paid off,” she said, with phrasing designed to portray the Conservatives as the ‘party of work’ while tapping into the false ‘deserving and undeserving’ poor dichotomy. Debt is going down and support for public services will go up, she next told the Commons. Here is where the PM’s message becomes muddled: telling the public that “unlike Labour, we will continue to live within our means” doesn’t do much to rebut arguments her ‘end of austerity’ pledge is a con.

The rest of PMQs saw Corbyn raise local authority cuts, falling numbers of police officers, fewer nurse training applications after bursaries were axed, and the devastating effects of the Universal Credit roll-out. May had prepared replies on most of those issues, but the Labour leader ultimately had the upper hand. What use is saying youth unemployment is low when Corbyn can point out there are record numbers of people on zero-hours contracts, exceedingly high levels of in-work poverty driving food bank usage and wages lower in real terms than eight years ago? After all, voters know whether they feel their hard work has paid off or not.