How do you unite the Labour party and cheer them up? Today the party’s MPs were cheering happily and laughing along at the jokes offered from their Dispatch Box for the first time in months. And on Monday, they managed to have a cheerful meeting of the parliamentary Labour party. One thing that was missing from both sessions was Jeremy Corbyn.
The cheer that accompanied Angela Eagle as she got to her feet to ask her first question of George Osborne, who was standing in for David Cameron, was full and sincere. And though she didn’t have a particularly devastating series of questions – she managed to meander through the Tory bullying scandal, Osborne’s leadership ambitions and the renegotiation in one long question – she certainly gave the Chamber the sense of energetic debate that it has lacked recently.
She started by asking the Chancellor about flood defences, with additional barracking from former Shadow Environment Secretary Mary Creagh on the backbenches.
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