I have watched Prime Minister’s Questions for some time and occasionally admired how eloquent an orator former premier David Cameron was.
I have never voted Conservative, nor do I ever intend to in future, but he had a style which enabled him to move almost seamlessly from statute to statistic and deliver his message in a statesmanlike manner while undermining the credibility of his opponent.
Having secured an ongoing constitutional relationship with Scotland in 2014, gained a majority and dispensed with their pitiful coalition partners in 2015, the Tories looked well-oiled and unstoppable.
How times change. Since Theresa May took over, she has lost 70,000 members and her majority in the Commons, presided over 41 resignations and then ceded authority over Brexit to a party which does not want Brexit.
These are indeed remarkable times. Every 24 hours, UK politics has more plot twists than a season of House of Cards and yet it is in the context of this chaos that Labour appears to be in the ascendancy.
The most recent poll conducted by DeltaPoll saw Labour with a five-point lead over the Conservatives and Jeremy Corbyn certainly looked in bouyant form at Prime Minister’s Questions.
Having been invited into dialogue by the prime minister only 24 hours earlier, Mr Corbyn used PMQs to focus on the domestic, rather than the international, agenda.
He contrasted the efforts of the former Labour government to lift pensioners and children out of poverty and cut homelessness in half with the current government, which has increased child and pensioner poverty and doubled homelessness.
Mr Corbyn said: “There is nothing inevitable about rising poverty, homelessness and soaring foodbank use in the fifth richest nation in the world.
“So, yes, let’s work to try to resolve the Brexit deadlock but unless this government tackles insecure work, low pay and rising pensioner poverty, her government will be a failure in the eyes of the people of this country.”
I found it hard to disagree with any of his comments.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation released figures last week in which its deputy director Chris Goulden raised concerns about insecure employment, the benefit freeze and the cost of housing keeping families tangled in a web of poverty.
The Independent Food Aid Network also published figures revealing that the scale of food poverty in Scotland is significantly higher than previously estimated.
The current government has been hamstrung by the international agenda while people experiencing poverty are already sliding off the cliff edge everyone else projects will be the result of Brexit.
The people who, three years ago, were feeling mildly scathed are now badly scorched by the burning injustices Mrs May sought to salve.
In fact, those injustices are now becoming deeply embedded inequalities.
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