Prime Minister’s Questions: The key bits and the verdict
Image copyright HoC Theresa May went head-to-head with Jeremy Corbyn in the House of Commons. Here's what happened.
Brexit has been a happy hunting ground for Jeremy Corbyn in recent weeks and there was no shortage of material for him to get his teeth into at this session.
The Labour leader went straight in with a question about Boris Johnson's alleged dismissal, "in Anglo-Saxon terms", of the concerns of business, noting the foreign secretary's absence from the chamber and asking: Did the PM agree with Mr Johnson?
Theresa May said the Conservatives would always back business, unlike, she said, Mr Corbyn, who wanted to "overthrow capitalism". The Labour leader said he would take that as a "thumbs down for the foreign secretary".
Could the prime minister reassure Airbus and other businesses by ruling out a "no deal" Brexit, he asked.
If the Labour leader was so concerned about the aerospace industry why was he against a third runway at Heathrow, hit back Mrs May. This was the cue for an explosion of noise from all sides and the first of several interventions from Speaker Bercow.
When she could finally get a hearing, the PM continued trying to exploit Labour divisions over Heathrow, quoting Unite General Secretary Len McCluskey's backing for airport expansion.
Mr Corbyn took another swipe at the absent foreign secretary, saying he had helped the aviation industry "in his own way" by "spending 14 hours on a plane for a 10 minute meeting in Afghanistan". Then he switched focus to manufacturing jobs, wondering how many businesses had expressed the same fears to Mrs May in private that had been publicly voiced by Airbus and BMW.
Mr Corbyn squeezed in a pop at Jacob Rees-Mogg, whose hedge fund, he said, was relocating to the eurozone (which Mr Rees-Mogg later said in a point of order was not true) - then it was time for one of the Labour leader's letters.
"Andrew", Mr Corbyn said, who works at the Honda plant in Swindon, had written to him to say he was not convinced by the government's handling of Brexit talks and worried about his job.
Mrs May insisted the government was putting jobs first - and accused Mr Corbyn of being a career-long Brexiteer whose party was now trying to "frustrate" Brexit.
The Labour leader said everything was pointing towards a "no deal" Brexit - asking what had happened to the cabinet committees tasked with deciding on which customs option to go for. The prime minister was too busy negotiating the "warring egos" in her cabinet, who had now been "invited to a pyjama party at Chequers", to sort out Brexit.
This was the cue for Mrs May to list, at some length, what she views as her government's achievements, taking in everything from the childhood obesity strategy to "record levels of employment", finishing with a declaration that Britain will leave the European Union in March 2019.
What else came up?
The SNP's Iain Blackford accused the PM of "insulting the business community" over Brexit and accused the PM of putting car-making jobs at risk.
Conservative backbencher Nick Boles asked if public buildings will be able to fly the St George's cross for the rest of the World Cup.
Theresa May said Number 10 was currently flying the Armed Forces flag but said she can "assure" MPs that it will do so on the day of every remaining England match, and will be "encouraging other departments to do the same".
She added: "Next year we will do the same for the women's World Cup."
- No 10 to fly England flag for World Cup
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Tory MP Heidi Allen called for a task force to deal with rail problems.
Ex-army officer, Conservative MP Johnny Mercer raised the fear that the UK will lose the status of a "Teir 1" military power; the PM's carefully worded response was that she wants the UK to remain a "leading military power".
The Verdicts
Here is what the BBC's Andrew Neil said:
Here is BBC Parliamentary Correspondent Mark D'Arcy's verdict:
The heat is rising and the Brexit pot is beginning to bubble. Jeremy Corbyn and the SNP's Ian Blackford both raised the warnings from big companies about the jobs implications of a "no-deal" exit from the EU.
This gladiatorial arena is not an ideal place for the nuance and technical detail essential to this subject, but never mind the minutiae, feel the politics.
Jeremy Corbyn sounds increasingly committed to "a" customs union arrangement and Theresa May responded with taunts about his previous euroscepticism and mocked the idea that someone who wanted to abolish capitalism could be pro-business.
And she was able to follow up with a mocking lash at Labour and the SNP's failure to support Heathrow expansion - not exactly business-friendly, she added.
Labour's Mary Creagh suggested the foreign secretary's demotic dismissal of business concerns about post Brexit customs arrangements were an effective summary of the impact of a hard Brexit… a nice pithy point.
But the PM will have been more worried by a rather less unfriendly question from up and coming backbencher Gillian Keegan, about fears of her local motor manufacturer, Rolls Royce.
She does not want to find herself besieged by her own backbenchers, raising concerns from their local employers, as Leaving Day approaches. Nerves are fraying there, and the government is going to need answers.
The PM got through question time, and while she mostly looked and sounded confident, and occasionally seemed to be enjoying herself, I'm not sure she emerges with her credit much strengthened.
Jeremy Corbyn had some nice mordant lines about the state of the government, but his underlying problem in attacking the PM on Brexit, is that his party, and even more, his voters, are also divided.
As for the other players - Ian Blackford now attracts as much heckling as the Labour leader, and chose to ask quite a similar question. The combined result of those factors was a low-impact outing.
The Lib Dems' Vince Cable always wants to insert a few barbs before getting on to his question - which allows Tory heckling to build and often opens up a line of counter-attack for the PM.
In this case she was able to give her most Brexity backbenchers an applause line, by reaffirming her determination to leave the EU by the end of March.
