After a very shaky conference season, the opposition and the Westminster commentariat were like waiting predators for Theresa May this week, ready to pounce and pick apart her every pause, stumble and stutter. And so into the lion’s den she went for this week’s PMQs. After controversy had been raging about the charges people could face ringing the Universal Credit hotline, the Prime Minister was quick to indicate a climb down was afoot, saying it was “right” to drop the charges, confirming they would be scrapped “over the next month.” A good platform for the Prime Minister to launch her weekly PMQs from, you might think? Maybe not.
Jeremy Corbyn indeed welcomed the decision to scrap the call charges, but then pushed the Prime Minister to pause the roll out of Universal Credit entirely. It all turned into a farce when the Prime Minister’s first word in response to the Leader of the Opposition was “yes” followed by a stumble and a stammer, leaving enough time for the House to erupt into applause and cries of “she said yes!” before she had to wag her finger and say “listen to the rest of the sentence!... listen to the rest of the sentence!” and clarify her response. Jeremy 1, Theresa 0.
And that wasn’t where the pain ended on Universal Credit. Conservative Party rebels including Heidi Allen are ramping up the pressure on the Government to fix the six-week delay which many people are facing in receiving their payments and MP Sarah Wollaston even voted in favour of Labour’s motion to put a halt to the accelerated roll-out of the programme. As reported in The Times on Thursday, this opposition isn’t going away and backbench rebels are increasingly confident of seeing a second major concession around length of payment terms within the next few weeks.
Elsewhere in Westminster this week, the less assuming Johnson brother has shown his teeth, issuing a forceful warning to Universities whose Student Union’s seek to curtail freedom of speech and debate on panels. Universities must pledge to uphold free speech on campus or face being fined, suspended or even deregistered by the new higher education regulator, the Office for Students (OfS). Jo Johnson has also pledged to tackle grade inflation and plagiarism and he will encourage Universities to offer more two-year degrees to save students money.
And finally, it isn’t just in the Conservative Party where things are fractious, it seems our family lives aren’t so stable either. In not so cheery news, new data out from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) tells us that divorce rates are up for the first time in five years, with the most common reason cited being unreasonable behaviour on the part of the husband. Like Mrs May’s hopes for harmony in her party, statisticians are suggesting this could just be a momentary blip and we’ll be living happily ever after again soon.