PMQs review: Emily Thornberry's skewering of Damian Green was quite a sight to behold

The Prime Minister’s deputy was a good foil for the Shadow Foreign Secretary’s ambition

Emily Thornberry is good at Prime Minister’s Questions. Labour MPs look forward to hearing from her. She is confident, does jokes, and makes Conservatives feel uncomfortable.

And Damian Green, standing in for Theresa May while she is away in the Middle East, looked like a drama class student trying to use his body to say “uncomfortable” before Thornberry had even asked her first question.

She started with two good lines. She joined Green in congratulating Harry and Meghan on their engagement, and said: “That’s one Anglo-American couple we’re glad to see holding hands.” It took a split second for MPs to recall the photo of Donald Trump holding the Prime Minister’s hand, allegedly because he is afraid of steps.

Then she wished the England team well in the Rugby League World Cup, scoring a point for the North of England, and said she would be “waving her St George’s flag”, scoring another point for self-mockery – she was sacked from the Labour front bench for tweeting a photo sneering at a house draped in flags in the Rochester by-election a few years ago.

Green carried on doing his “uncomfortable” impression, waiting for Thornberry’s first question. It was nearly too clever, when it came, asking if the First Secretary were “happy to be held to the same standards in Government as in Opposition”.

You could almost see the thoughts racing across Green’s forehead. What had he said in opposition that was going to be used against him now? What, in particular, had he said about Labour ministers under investigation for allegations of sexual harassment or misuse of office equipment? Not the sort of thing he got involved in, generally, but which of his words was Thornberry going to take out of context and throw back at him?

Mr Uncomfortable played it safe and talked blandly about how important it was that people in public life kept to the highest standards, and all the MPs in the chamber thought, “What does he know about the state of the investigation into his own affairs?”

Thornberry made him squirm a bit more. She wanted to know how he would answer a question he had asked John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, 17 years ago. Again, Green’s face was like a dot matrix display with words running across it: “Seventeen years ago? That was 2000, quite early on in the Labour government. Long before anyone knew about Prescott’s affair with someone in his private office. I could have asked him about anything…”

Finally, Thornberry got to her punchline, and read out the question: Can he tell the House what percentage of the new nurses recruited in the past 12 months are now working full time?

Relief clashed with befuddlement in Green’s barely mobile features. His chest said, “Phew.” His brain said, “I have no idea of the answer to this question.” His mouth said, “More nurses, more midwives…”

After that, it was back to Punch and Judy as usual. Thornberry had all the statistics to show the NHS was in trouble. Green had the NHS in Labour Wales in reply, and both sides know that this is the Government defence of last resort.

Thornberry threw away her last couple of questions. She asked about poor reviews and the threat of closure of Green’s local A&E department. But he said he knew more about it than she did and, although he got tetchy about her presuming to lecture him about “my constituency”, he plainly did.

But she had made him squirm, and both sides of the House knew it. She will have done her chances of succeeding Jeremy Corbyn – whenever he decides to go – no harm at all.