Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Lindsay Hoyle was a breath of fresh air at PMQs

New year. New parliament. New speaker of the House of Commons. The change was palpable immediately. Former speaker John Bercow found it impossible to say nothing even when he had nothing to say, which was most of the time. His successor Lindsay Hoyle has the contrary virtue of terseness. He got through the session without uttering a word, other than to state the name of each MP as he called them.

Jeremy Corbyn, newly elected member for Tehran South, fretted about the legality of Qassem Soleimani’s assassination.

‘Not our operation,’ said Boris. He noted that Corbyn had failed to condemn any of Soleimani’s military operations, even though ‘that man had the blood of British troops on his hands.’

He added that Corbyn had ‘famously received £10,000’ from Iran’s state TV company.

Corbyn raised his chin with an expression of wounded nobility, as if he’d just discovered mildew on his prize courgettes.

The Labour leader outlined his simplistic analysis of the present crisis.

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