PMQs was about as much fun as waiting in an ambulance outside A&E

The NHS winter crisis was the Labour leader’s saviour. Long may it continue

If you want to be a Smart Alec, you don’t have to be called Alec, but you do have to be smart. Pete Wishart is neither. How pleased the SNP man was, with his genius question, asking the Prime Minister to rate how she thought Brexit was going “between one and 10”.

“I know what I’d give her,” he said, before sitting down and holding up a sign saying “Nul Points”, which is not a number between one and 10.

That was as good as it got.

In fact, if you happened to miss Prime Minister’s Questions this week I imagine you’re not aware of the grim news.

You might not believe this, but it turns out the NHS doesn’t have the required funds to provide as wide a range of healthcare provisions as it would like, and in as timely a fashion as would be desired in an ideal world.

I know, I know. I was shocked too. The NHS has problems, and those problems have arisen because it doesn’t have enough cash.

To be honest, after the bombshell revelation I struggled to concentrate, but I believe I heard Jeremy Corbyn come up with a solution. That’s right. An apology.

Fifty-thousand people were kept waiting in ambulances outside A&E in the last week of December, and to those people Mr Corbyn demanded Theresa May apologise.

Theresa May said she had already apologised, although I think that might have been for postponing thousands of operations. Keeping people waiting in ambulances outside A&E, she had not yet apologised for.

Usually, at a general election, such as the one that happened six months ago, one or the other of the main party leaders loses and has to go. But that didn’t happen, so the only way forward now is the NHS or PMQs.

I personally don’t mind which one is abolished but they can’t both be kept alive like this.

Other opposition leaders might have been able to point out to the Prime Minister that her attempt to reshuffle her Government on Monday had ended with her Government refusing to be reshuffled. But Corbyn knows he has no firmer grip on his own party than she does. Other opposition leaders might say a word or two on Brexit, but every time Corbyn does so it is a disaster. His own position is even worse.

You can hardly blame him for constantly calling the NHS a disaster, but in these exchanges it serves no purpose.

Indeed, the purpose, as ever, was made clear by Jeremy Corbyn’s sixth question, which, as ever, was not a question but a sustained pre-prepared rant on privatisation and fat cats stealing the NHS’s money and Jeremy Hunt, the captain on the sinking ship, the video of which has already been clipped up and sent in to the Corbynsphere.

It’s hardly new, politicians playing to the Commons cameras. But if you’re expecting Prime Minister’s Questions to shed any actual light on the NHS crisis, you’ll be waiting a lot longer than anyone in an ambulance outside A&E.