Emily Thornberry’s PMQs performance should worry Jeremy Corbyn

The PM is abroad. Her vacant throne was occupied by David Lidington, the agreeably lightweight Leader of the House. He’s confident, fast-talking, well-briefed but glib and untidy-looking. He doesn’t improvise well. Physically he’s an unrestful presence. He hops and twitches and pecks and dabs like a pigeon attacking a box of Chicken McNuggets. For comic effect he likes to turn sideways with both arms outstretched as if entreating somebody in the wings. A speaking coach would tell him to calm down, put his hands in his pockets and stop head-butting imaginary bees.

He made no errors today. He didn’t exactly shine. Bumptious competence was his level. Opposite him was Emily Thornberry whose warm buttery voice, like melting fudge, belies her forensic acuity. She subjected him to an artful and sustained cross-examination on the government’s Brexit plans which made him look shifty and reticent. And faintly abusive as well. When she complained that all his answers sounded the same he suggested that repeating himself by rote was the only way to penetrate her feeble intellect.