You could tell there was trouble afoot by the appearance of the Health Secretary within slapping distance of Theresa May.
The fear on his face gave the game away – it was tethered Jeremy Hunt time in the House of Commons.
Actually it was the first outing of the New Year for Prime Ministers Questions , but
January, the NHS and trouble seem to go hand in hand.
And if winter had not sneaked up on the health service once again, this year another discovery.
More of us have been getting older without telling anyone – apparently until last week.
The news, thankfully, had finally filtered through to the leader of the Labour Party, the other Jeremy.
Finally, because yesterday he had re-launched himself into the political fray by declaring bosses pay and immigration the two key issues on Labour’s agenda.
His advisers are said to have decided to adopt the Donald Trumpian approach to future Corbyn comments.
He will make a statement on policy and as long as it gets headlines it will be seen as a success.
Like the President-Elect, even if it’s bollocks as long as it’s talked about it works.
This morning was therefore very successful since the media happily denounced another 12 hours of Corbyn confusion.
This would have made it an easy day for Theresa May but for the pesky NHS, once safe – said Downing Street Dave – in Tory hands.
With her predecessor now on the gravy train out of town, it was a nervous not quite new PM who turned up at the Despatch Box.
With Jeremy H already staked out, Mrs M had also slipped Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson close by to provide some light relief – which he proceeded to do by ignoring all that followed.
Over on Labour’s side, Jeremy sat flanked by unknown members of his Shadow Cabinet.
Deputy leader Tom Watson was also up close- but hardly ever in contact – as he revealed last week.
Jeremy did brake with tradition by sticking to the same subject for all six of his questions on this, his new key issue.
He started angry and stayed that way as the Prime Minister decided denying there was any real problem was her way out.
Mrs M conceded a “small number of incidents” but said the alleged crisis had been “overblown”. Boris chatted to chums.
As she dodged and dived her own backbenchers were looking increasingly nervous at ‘overblown’ constituents getting in touch.
Normally the bully boy chorus would rush to her aid but today they left her to swop death stares with Jeremy C – with a bit of braying when they could be bothered.
With nothing resolved both sat down.
Labour MPs, silent during the Corbyn contribution bestirred themselves to boo when a Lib Dem suggested an all-party approach.
Meanwhile Theresa May kept digging out the tissues to mop away winter sniffles.
Not a good week to go to the doctor.
“UK Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Hunt and Dr. Mark Davies visit the Center for Total Health 25439” flickr photo by tedeytan https://flickr.com/photos/taedc/8950280207 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-SA) license
