PMQs: Corbyn is right - Cameron is ignoring the very people who voted him into power less than a year ago
The Tories used to pitch themselves as a party for aspirational professionals. After their attacks on doctors and teachers, it's anyone's guess what they stand for now
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Your support makes all the difference.Jeremy Corbyn pointed out something important at PMQs today: as the Tories turn on aspirational professionals during a week of junior doctor walk-outs, they’ve scuppered their own PR. In fact, they are choosing to attack the very people who voted them in to power less than a year ago.
Cameron’s jokes about rocket ships and repeat television shows could not disguise the fact that he was out of his depth today. Corbyn was right to align himself with the concern the public have for the latest Tory education plan. The stand-out line from their exchange – “When will the government listen to the public, parents and patients... and change his ways, listen to them, rather than imposing things from above?” – neatly summarised the fact that middle class voters, teachers and doctors are all feeling their patience wear thin with a Tory government which seems to have no one’s best interests at heart except its own.
While the Prime Minister reeled off the supporters of his plans, he couldn’t even find quotes that directly backed his academy programme – perhaps because there’s an absolute dearth of them. In the case of the junior doctors’ strike, the same can be said as polling shows that the public still overwhelmingly support junior doctors in their pursuit to protect the NHS, even as they leave emergency care for the first time this week.
This is the second week in a row that Jeremy Corbyn has forced the Prime Minister into treacherous waters. The Labour leader was passionate in condemning Tory arrogance, calling on the Prime Minister to trust people who work in our public services to run them. This was perhaps where Corbyn was at his strongest. While Cameron attempted to align his party with aspiration, the Labour leader made clear that it is actually the Labour party that stands with parents, teachers, patients and professionals alike.
Labour must show that it can stick to its core belief of supporting the poor and vulnerable while also creating an economy that allows aspirational people to get on. In this – largely due to the errors of Cameron’s own government – it is succeeding.
Where is the legendary Tory support for those who want to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps”? The government’s teaching of our brightest and best in recent times hardly even seems to align with Conservative ideology.
Those who voted for David Cameron only a few short months ago want and deserve to know the answer to why the Prime Minister has turned on teachers and doctors as much as the most vocal supporters of Jeremy Corbyn. The smug sense that he can truly get away with anything is threatening to become Cameron’s fatal tragic flaw.
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