Labour MPs have had plenty of opportunities over the past few weeks to look miserable. But today the party looked its most miserable ever as Jeremy Corbyn responded to David Cameron’s statement on the Strategic Defence and Security Review. Even the frontbenchers, particularly Tom Watson, looked unhappy. Andy Burnham looked even more doleful than usual. On the backbenches, MPs such as Dan Jarvis and Caroline Flint wore masks of agony. Chris Leslie had his arms crossed defensively, looking miserable. Diane Abbott appeared to be a little snoozy. Helen Goodman was slumped in her seat in what appeared to be despair. Labourites afterwards described the response as ‘poor’.
It was poor: Corbyn managed to spend the opening section responding to a different statement on policing, not the one the Commons had just heard. He criticised the government’s plans to cut the police before complaining about what had been left out of the review: inequality, poverty, disease, human rights abuses, climate change and water and food security, or indeed the flow of arms and illicit funds.
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