May ‘channelling Thatcher’ in parliament debut
Opposition repeatedly mocked
LONDON, July 20, (AFP): Conservative lawmakers cheered British Prime Minister Theresa May as she repeatedly mocked the opposition while dodging key questions on Brexit in a confident debut at parliamentary question time on Wednesday.
The weekly ritual of Prime Minister’s Questions is seen as a key leadership test and May, Britain’s second female prime minister — following the legacy of Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher — passed with ease.
May relentlessly mocked opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a veteran socialist who is facing a leadership challenge backed by dozens of his own MPs, using his own questions against him.
“I am interested that he refers to the situation of some workers who might have some job insecurity and potentially unscrupulous bosses,” she told Corbyn.
“A boss who doesn’t listen to his workers? A boss who requires some of his workers to double their workload? And maybe even a boss who exploits the rules to further his own career. Remind him of anybody?”
Corbyn has been forced to give supporters multiple portfolios as he cannot find enough willing MPs to fill his shadow cabinet.
May went on: “You refer to me as the second woman prime minister.
“In my years in the House I’ve long heard the Labour party asking what the Conservative Party does for women — well, (it) just keeps making us prime minister.”
She also told Tim Farron, leader of the Liberal Democrats, a minority partner in a coalition government with the Conservatives between 2010 and 2015: “My party’s a little bit bigger than his.”
May has been in government ever since Cameron won his first election in 2010 and several commentators said her experience showed in a commanding performance.
The Independent said May’s style was “eerily reminiscent” of Thatcher, well known for her caustic rhetoric, and the Daily Mail’s deputy political editor Jason Groves also said on Twitter that she appeared to be “channelling Thatcher”.
But the Guardian said that while May had sounded “confident and assured and prime ministerial”, her emulation of so-called Iron Lady was “a little too contrived”.
May only became prime minister last week after David Cameron stepped down in the wake of Britain’s referendum vote to leave the European Union.
She dodged questions about whether Britain aimed to remain in the EU’s Single Market and what restrictions should be placed on EU immigrants — a key issue during the referendum campaign.
In related news, Theresa May used her first parliamentary grilling as Britain’s new prime minister on Wednesday to taunt the opposition over women’s rights, pointing out that it was her party that had made her the country’s second female leader after Margaret Thatcher.
She won loud cheers from the Conservative Party benches in the debating chamber as she stood to face the daunting array of questions usually levelled at the prime minister during the 30-minute grilling, which can range from major foreign policy issues to parochial affairs.
May, who styles herself as a downto-earth, unflashy leader, kicked off her remarks in the house by welcoming a drop in unemployment and setting out plans to visit German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande.
But she also picked up where Cameron left off last week, laying into the opposition Labour Party, whose leader Jeremy Corbyn is locked in a bitter internal power struggle in which the only female candidate to replace him dropped out on Tuesday.