Pmqs

PMQs was always going to be an odd event today. David Cameron is going as Prime Minister and Jeremy Corbyn is trying to survive wave after wave of resignations from his front bench. When Corbyn rose to his feet, there was almost complete silence from the Labour benches—there was the odd chuckle from the Tory one. The first few exchanges were relatively flat. But then Cameron was clearly riled by Corbyn suggesting that the referendum had been lost because voters didn’t think the status quo was working for them. Cameron swiped back that if the EU referendum was Corbyn putting his back into something, as the Labour leader had claimed,

What a strange farewell. The slickest, sparkiest and most brutal street-fighter the Tory party has produced in a generation found himself agreeing with his worst enemies today. ‘That says something,’ shouted David Cameron (who remains prime minister for the next week or so). ‘We have huge disagreements,’ he explained. And yet despite the fault-lines his Remain campaign enjoys the support of nearly the entire opposition: the Greens, Labour, the Lib Dems, the Northern Ireland parties and Cameron’s bete noire, the SNP. ‘When we all agree,’ he finger-wagged, ‘that really says something.’ Absolutely. It says they’re all deluded. Does poor Cam know he’s finished? At times he seemed to sense it.

With the EU referendum just weeks away, Jeremy Corbyn is now trying to exploit Tory divisions over the issue. At PMQs today, he invited Cameron to attack both Priti Patel and Michael Gove. The Labour leader also criticised the whole decision to suspend collective responsibility. Cameron, aware of how much he needs Labour’s help between now and June 23rd, didn’t reply by highlighting Labour divisions over Trident or any other issue. However, as one listened to Cameron pointing out where his government had gone beyond the EU minimum on workers’ rights, one was reminded that the idea there’ll be no paid holiday if we leave the EU is just nonsense.

The only MP who doesn’t want Angela Eagle to be the next Jeremy Corbyn is Jeremy Corbyn. He was away today — thank Gawd! — leaving Eagle to take on George Osborne who replaced the PM. Eagle is quality. Her low stature, her kindly, nunnish face and her merry eyes give her a huge advantage in debate because she appears to be without defences. What weapon could this sweet-natured tinky-winky milkmaid possibly wield? A roll of grease paper? A warm scone? A rubber duck? When she strikes, as she does, the blow arrives invisibly. She has a slangy northern tongue that can easily make an Oxbridge toff look like a

Although Jeremy Corbyn did his best to press David Cameron on a range of issues at today’s PMQs, perhaps the most notable aspect of his performance was what he didn’t say. A number of commentators were surprised that the Labour leader did not ask Cameron to apologise for the extremism remarks he made about Sadiq Khan, who is now London’s mayor. Happily, one party leader was happy to put this to the Prime Minister — even if they weren’t best placed to ask it: Tim Farron: I heard the Prime Minister on two occasions this afternoon congratulate the new Mayor of London Sadiq Khan — and I would like to

Cameron hi-jacked today’s PMQs with a show of calculated brutality masked as high dudgeon. Feeble, whey-haired Corbyn obeyed the commands of his unwanted passenger and meekly drove him wherever he wished to go. Cameron’s destination was ‘extremist Labour’. Corbyn strives constantly to outdo himself in uselessness and today’s rambling, ill-structured assault was typical. Early on Cameron inverted the terms of the session and invited Corbyn to clarify his attitude to Hamas and Hezbollah. Years ago Corbyn had referred to Hamas as ‘friends’ at a seminar in parliament . Corbyn declined to re-express himself. Cameron repeated the demand and reminded us that the Hamas handbook calls for Jews to be killed

Does Cameron care any more? Insouciance is a more attractive quality than earnestness in a leader but Cameron is taking his demob-happiness to extremes. He dismisses every crisis with a bored eye-roll and a wave of the hand. Doctors strike? No big deal. Backbench revolt over education? Been there before. Dodgy dossier on Brexit? All forgotten by the summer. Tax evasion scandal? A scrap of signed paperwork will sort it. Corbyn attacked Tory plans to academise schools against their will. This is the same freedom-at-gunpoint policy that worked so well in Iraq and transformed a malign dictatorship into a thrusting modern democracy. Cameron believes that cattle-prodding schools into accepting autonomy

A vandal smashing a window and calling it air conditioning. A mother marrying her son and declaring it a lesson in advanced sexual morality. A shoplifter caught with a chicken up his jumper and congratulating the store detectives on their commitment to property rights. That’s how David Cameron ducked the tax-abuse row at PMQs today. He basked in hypocrisy. He wallowed in smugness. He luxuriated in panic measures and called them far-sighted statesmanship. He chose to posture as the brilliant leader of a brilliant government whose brilliant new policy is to rip down the cloaks of secrecy that protect Britain’s tax-dodge paradises overseas. And he contrasted his zeal with the

Corbyn had an open goal at PMQs. Cameron is weaker than he’s ever been. His favoured successor is toast. His party are restive and mutinous. Three months from now the retirement committee may gather around the PM with tense smiles and whetted blades. All Corbo had to do was kick straight. But asking the Labour leader to bang the ball into an undefended net is like asking a fish to sing ‘Heroes’. Up he got, looking a little bemused, like an elderly patient called unexpectedly to his hearing-aid appointment, and he set about his flat-battery attack. It hardly helped that he’d been greeted by a tinkling silence from his own

All MPs are familiar with Jeremy Corbyn. The nylon tie and the charity shop jacket give him an air of respectability, of erudition even, but the unloved haircut and the whiny accent mark him out as a toxic hazard. He’s the kind of champion grumbler who shows up at every constituency surgery with sheaves of paperwork stuffed into plastic bags. And today Jezza came stooping and shuffling into PMQs with a heap of with grievances to dump on David Cameron. The Labour leader’s activism may have a political flavour but its origins are personal. He gets his kicks by enduring defeat. Misery is his life’s mission. He opened by accusing