Key points

PMQs kicked off with more than the usual number of tributes, including to the former Labour MP and broadcaster Brian Walden, the actor and singer Doris Day, as well as Margaret Thatcher and the MPs for Birkenhead and Huddersfield, all elected 40 years ago.

Jeremy Corbyn said nine hedge fund tycoons had donated millions to the Tories. Was this a government for the many, or the elite few, he wanted to know. May responded that income inequality was down since 2010. The government wanted everyone to have better jobs, a better income, a better life. Labour wanted to bring people down; the Tories wanted to bring people up, she said.

Corbyn said Angus Deaton, the Nobel prize-winning economist investigating inequality for the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), had stated the UK was at risk of extreme inequality, with disparities in pay, health and wealth reaching those in the US. Was she proud of that? May said wages had gone up, while the top 1% paid more than under Labour.

Corbyn asked how it could be fair for executives to be paid so much more than their workers. Young people suffered in particular, which is why Labour would stop them being paid a lower minimum wage than older people. May said Labour’s policy would cost jobs, adding that youth unemployment had fallen by 50%.

Corbyn said the Tories opposed the minimum wage, claiming it would cost jobs. Why did her party continue to punish young people? Wages were lower than a decade ago, housing costs had soared, and more and more food banks were opening. The business department has opened one for its staff, he said.

May said work was the best way to ensure people have a good standard of living. She said Corbyn implied inequality started in 2010. But who said the last Labour government had ensured inequality got worse? Who was it? Corbyn himself.

Corbyn said his question was about food banks in a government ministry, which suggested it was in-work poverty that was the problem.

Corbyn said the IFS had stated there would be more than 5 million children living in poverty by 2022 because of the government’s policies. The wealth of the richest has increased by £50bn. But if we do not have enough money to feed people, we have failed as a society. When will the government reverse tax giveaways to the rich and end the scandal of inequality in Britain?

May said the top 1% were paying more in income tax than under Labour. Labour was proposing a welfare payment for everyone. That would mean money for the rich paid for by the poor.

Snap verdict

On Tuesday, in response to Bridget Prentice’s resignation from the party, Labour issued a statement saying its “bold and popular policies under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership have changed the political conversation in this country”. Today, he focused on a topic, inequality, where undoubtedly opinion was moving his way. You can argue about how much this is due to Corbyn personally – even that bastion of neoliberalism, the International Monetary Fund, was warning about inequality in 2014, long before Corbyn became Labour leader – but the announcement this week that the IFS has launched a major review of the consequences of inequality was a clear vindication of one of his core political themes.

The IFS has always been much more associated with fiscal rectitude than social justice, and if even it recognises there is a problem, Corbyn is winning the argument. A sensible prime minister would recognise this, and engage. But instead, May just refused to accept there was anything wrong. It was an unconvincing performance that saw her easily outmatched by Corbyn.

But it was still all a bit underwhelming. Largely because, with May effectively working out her notice, who cares what she has to say anyway? This became painfully apparent when she had to respond to a question about the next spending round, which is one that will be overseen by her successor. In her exchanges with Corbyn, and the Scottish National party’s Ian Blackford, it felt as though May was not even trying particularly hard.

But PMQs did throw up two policy issues where the debate over the coming months is likely to intensify. Corbyn proudly defended Labour’s plan to extend its real living wage to under-18s. There is a genuine debate to be had about whether this can be done without increasing youth unemployment, but the arguments did not really get much of a hearing today. Interestingly, May chose to raise another Labour proposal: its qualified support for universal basic income. But again, the rights and wrongs of this were not thrashed out in today’s debate. That will have to wait for another day.

Corbyn used to make a point of using the “letter from an ordinary voter” device to frame an awkward question for the PM. Today, it was the Tory Brexiter Peter Bone who tried this. It allowed him to tell May she should resign, but in a manner that discouraged a blunt response (because the activists who supposedly drafted this letter would deserve a polite reply). But Bone just got the usual May brushoff. Even calls for her resignation can’t really enliven PMQs very much now.

Memorable lines

Theresa May:

The way [Corbyn] talks you would think inequality started in 2010. Who was it who said of the last Labour government they ensured that the gap between the richest and the poorest in our society became very much bigger … The words of the right honourable gentleman attacking his own government.

Jeremy Corbyn: