Rishi Sunak had two tap-ins at the start of Prime Minister’s Questions.
First, he could praise England for their World Cup win on Tuesday night and offer some crumbs of comfort to Wales.
Then the SNP’s Tommy Sheppard threw him an easy question on Scottish independence which he could bury in the back of the net.
When Sir Keir Starmer got to his feet the contest became tougher.
But it was largely a midfield tussle as the Labour leader failed to deliver any clinical finishes.
It was far more the current Chelsea than Arsenal, his team now comfortably at the top of the Premier League.
Starmer’s build-up was proficient but Sunak was able to defend nimbly and then counter-attack.
The Labour leader’s first line of attack was on the issue of VAT tax breaks for private schools.
He said: “Winchester College has a rowing club, a rifle club, an extensive art collection, they charge over £45,000 a year in fees. Why did he hand them nearly £6 million of taxpayers’ money this year in what his Levelling Up Secretary (Michael Gove) calls egregious state support?”
Sunak, who went to Winchester College, was prepared and hit back that he was “pleased he wants to talk about schools, because we have recently announced billions more funding for our (state) schools”.
But Starmer stressed that in nearby Southampton, four out of ten pupils failed their English or maths GCSE this year, adding: “Is that £6 million of taxpayers’ money better spent on rifle ranges in Winchester or driving up standards in Southampton?”
Sunak responded that education reforms meant that now almost 90 per cent of schools were good or outstanding, continuing: “Whenever he attacks me about where I went to school, he is attacking the hard-working aspiration of millions of people in this country, he’s attacking people like my parents.
“This is a country that believes in opportunity not resentment. He doesn’t understand that and that’s why he’s not fit to lead.”
Starmer, though was not letting up: “If he thinks the route to better education in this country is tax breaks for private schools in the hope that they might hand some of that down to state schools, that’s laughable. Trickledown education is nonsense.”
Sunak argued in response that school standards were being improved for “every pupil” and that Britain was “marching up” the league tables for reading and writing.
Starmer then switched his fire onto the Conservatives’ record on home ownership, accusing them of “killing off aspiration in this country”.
He probed: “Why is the dream of homeownership far more remote now than it was when his party came into power 12 years ago?”
He also claimed “at this rate under this Government, a child born in the UK today wouldn’t be able to buy their first home until they are 45”.
Sunak replied that the Tories had “inherited the lowest level of housing building in a century”.
He stepped up his riposte: “What have we done in those 12 years? The highest number of new homes started in 15 years, the largest number of first-time buyers in 20 years.”
In what was a politically-charged offer, the Labour leader then told the PM that his party would lend the Government the votes it needs to pass the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill with mandatory housing targets, legislation threatened by a revolt of backbench Tory MPs.
As the premier seeks to defuse rebellions on the housing targets and onshore windfarms, Starmer branded him “weak”, saying he does not need to do another “grubby” deal (reference to Sunak making Suella Braverman Home Secretary) to defeat the housing amendment from his “anti-growth” backbenchers.
Upping his rhetoric, Starmer added said: “Country before party, that’s the Labour way. Why doesn’t he try it?”
His comments come days after the Government was forced to pull a vote on plans for mandatory, centrally-set targets to build 300,000 homes a year, after around 50 Tory MPs signed an amendment that would have scrapped the targets.
The Labour leader said: “Every week, he hands out cash to those that don’t need it. Every week he gets pushed around and every week he gets weaker.”
But Sunak appeared to have gained in confidence and lambasted Starmer for the same “old” Labour ideas, with “more debt, more inflation, more strikes and more migration”.
He also threw back the “weak” allegation at Starmer, saying: “He is too weak to stop dozens of his own MPs joining the picket line.”
He added: “He tells his party what they want to hear. I’ll take the difficult decisions to this country and that’s the choice, it’s the politics of yesterday with him or the future of the country with me.”
If anything, the PM won a narrow victory, especially judging by the cheers from the blue crowd compared to the red benches, and given the weight of expectation now on Starmer.
What was clear with Sunak at the Despatch Box is that the weekly exchanges will be far more combative and less one-sided than when Starmer was facing Liz Truss.
Again, Labour MPs may have been left despondent that their leader is not more of a clinical finisher.
Tory backbenchers are relieved they no longer have a leader burying goals in the back of their own net.
Many are hoping the brief, chaotic Truss administration will quickly disappear into the dust of history.
But the scoreboard is showing little sign of this happening, with Labour still some 20 points ahead in the polls.
Voters, like many diehards football fans, may have longer memories than Tory MPs may wish to admit.
