Political reporter(wp/es):
Theresa May slapped down Jeremy Corbyn today after he got confused between the “IMF” and “IFS” economic bodies.
During Prime Minister’s Questions, the Labour leader branded the Government’s economic strategy an “abject failure” after forecasts for last week’s Autumn Statement showed lower GDP growth, wage growth and business investement down, and borrowing and debt revised up.
The Prime Minister hit back, stressing that the International Monetary Fund had forecast the UK to be the fastest growing advanced economy in the world this year.
A record number of people were in work with companies like Nissan, Jaguar Land Rover, Honda, Apple, Google, ARM and Facebook investing in Britain to “secure” jobs, she added.
But Mr Corbyn responded that eradicating the deficit had been put back from 2015, to 2020 and now “whenever in the future.”
He then added: “Since she quotes the Institute of Fiscal Studies, I think she has been a little bit selective, because they also went on to say that the prospect for workers over the next six years was ‘dreadful’ and creating the ‘worst decade for living standards since the last war and probably since the 1920s’.”
Mrs May seized on this mix-up, replying: “I have to say to the Right Honourable Gentleman, I think given that he can’t differentiate between the IMF and the IFS, it’s probably a good job he’s sitting there and I’m standing here.”
Former Tory Cabinet minister Peter Lilley later appeared to mix up European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker with Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, when asking a question about securing rights for EU citizens in Britain and Britons in other European countries after Brexit.
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