PMQs: Rayner out-classes newbie Dowden with tried-and-tested attacks

With Rishi Sunak on his way to Japan for the G7 summit, it was the turn of his new deputy Oliver Dowden to head to the despatch box, facing off against Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner.

It was an underwhelming performance from Dowden, who took over as deputy Prime Minister following Dominic Raab’s resignation last month after an investigation upheld bullying allegations against him.

Dowden had a couple of good lines – including expressing surprise that he was not facing Keir Starmer’s “choice for the next deputy Prime Minister”, the leader of the Liberal Democrats. But many of his responses felt repetitive and tired, attacking Rayner for failing to stand up to her “union paymasters” and blaming issues in the NHS on the pressures caused by the pandemic.

It is telling when the Prime Minister and others resort to rolling out criticism of Jeremy Corbyn during PMQs, with mentions of the “member for Islington North” often cropping up towards the end of sessions that have seen intense scrutiny of the government. Dowden’s decision to bring up the former Labour leader in his very first response was indicative of the quality of much of the rest of his contributions.

Rayner: Tories ‘preparing for opposition’

Of course, Dowden had the misfortune of it not only being his first outing at PMQs but also being faced with Rayner, a strong and experienced performer. The deputy Labour leader hit out at the Conservative Party over the shocking comments made by some of its MPs at this week’s National Conservatism Conference, which she condemned as a “Trump tribute act” and a “carnival of conspiracy”, arguing that the event showed the Tories are “preparing for opposition”.

But the deputy Labour leader really hit her stride when she turned her attention to the government’s record on the NHS and child poverty. Rayner asked whether waiting lists have fallen as Sunak pledged they would by March. “The fact is, Mr Speaker, waiting lists are longer than when the Prime Minister made his pledge,” she told MPs in her next response.

“The number of people in England waiting to start hospital treatment is the highest since records began.” After an interruption from the Speaker to quiet the Tory benches, the deputy Labour leader declared: “They don’t want to hear the question because they know the answer… is that they’ve failed the British people.”

Rayner accused the government of taking a “wrecking ball” to measures introduced by the last Labour government to address child poverty and spoke movingly about her experience as a young mum and the “sick feeling” she felt in her stomach “not knowing if [her] wages would cover the bills”.

Tory navel-gazing a gift for Labour

Rayner declared that the Tories are “stuck in a conveyor belt of crisis”, while Labour is “focused on fixing the real problems facing British people”. Hitting a crescendo on her final question, Rayner demanded to know when the Conservatives will “stop blaming everybody else and realise that the problem is them”.

It was somewhat predictable that Dowden would struggle against Rayner – the deputy Labour leader ran rings around Raab at her last outing.

And the exercise in Conservative navel-gazing that is the NatCon Conference has been a gift to Labour, exposing the deep fissures within the ruling party. Rayner’s attacks on NHS waiting lists and child poverty may not have been particularly new, but they remain effective, setting out the case strongly that the government has “failed the British people” – and continues to do so.