Pmqs

This could have been a tricky PMQs for David Cameron. Instead, it will be remembered for Cameron ventriloquising his mother and telling Corbyn ‘put on a proper suit, do up your tie and sing the national anthem’. What gave this jibe its potency, is that it sums up what a lot of voters think of the Labour leader. It was not quite as Flashmanesque as it sounds. For it came in response to a Labour front bench heckle asking what Cameron’s mother would say about cuts in Oxfordshire. Even before Cameron floored Corbyn with that line, the Labour leader was struggling. He chose to go on the NHS and the

Housing is Jeremy Corbyn’s second favourite subject (after drainage lids). Back in the 1970s the grateful proletariat hailed his long years of service as Commissar For Council Accommodation in the People’s Republic of Haringey. At his retirement, chanting school-girls tied garlands of lilies around his brows and presented him with a commemorative Rent Book in a frame. Marching bands played. Fireworks fizzed and thundered. Private landlords were burned in effigy. What Corbyn learned from his housing career was to grind his enemies into submission with tedious blasts of numbers. But Cameron likes a good statistic himself and when Corbyn accused the government of building one new council house for every

The referendum is slowly (very slowly) breaking up Cameron’s cabinet. It’s put him in a weird mood. Yesterday he was striding about in shirt-sleeves like a bogus realtor selling flats on the moon. At PMQs today he was calmer and prepared for some rough weather. It failed to materialise. Jez We Can (Do a U-turn on Europe) didn’t want to discuss the In-Out decision in case viewers spotted that his love of Brussels is a mere summer crush dating from his election as Labour boss. Previously he was a committed Europe-nobbler. With his mentor, Tony Benn, he used to trudge along to every anti-EU meeting available. Alas, no one noticed.

Haven’t had a chance to follow the day’s political events and interviews? Then don’t worry: here, The Spectator, brings you the best of today’s audio clips in one place for you to listen to. David Cameron defended the Government over its handling of the Syrian refugee crisis after being criticised for refusing to accept 3,000 unaccompanied child migrants into Britain: He also said he was ‘very clear what he meant’ when he referred to a ‘bunch of migrants’ in Calais during yesterday’s PMQs: The PM’s original remarks can be heard here: Meanwhile, George Osborne said the sale of Lloyds shares would be delayed until financial markets had calmed down: Speaking

Jeremy Corbyn hasn’t changed his clothes since Christmas. He arrived at PMQs today in his dependable outfit of non-slip shoes, biscuit-coloured suit and minimum-wage tie. His white, flattened scalp and his mood of perplexed fatigue make him look like a dutiful pensioner inspecting a care-home for his beloved mum and wondering if he might check in as well, while he’s there. Today, however, mighty deeds summoned him to parliament. International monsters awaited his challenge. There were slavering dragons to tame. And famous victories to be won and celebrated. But he wasn’t up to it. As always. When Corbyn fails, it has to be said, he does so placidly and almost

This week David Cameron has warned that migrant spouses who fail language tests could be made to leave the UK. While many have since accused the Prime Minister of stigmatising Muslim women over his call for immigrants to take language lessons, Mr S is more concerned that he is not au fait with the age-old adage that ‘people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones’. Speaking on Today on Monday to announce his plans, Cameron’s Eton education appeared to escape him entirely as he used a double negative to describe the problem: ‘There are 38,000 Muslim women who don’t speak hardly any English at all’ While he could perhaps be forgiven for

A new face at PMQs becomes samey after a few months. Corbo reached that point some time ago and Cameron can now contain him without breaking a sweat. He’s not threatened by the Labour leader for the simple reason that Corbyn lacks any forensic guile. To prepare, mount or press home an attack is beyond his powers so he just reads out his set questions in a low verbal moan, like next door’s Hoover. Today they tussled over the scrapping of bursaries for trainee nurses. Cameron said this reform makes it easier to fill the wards with bustling sisters and swishing matrons. No, said Corbyn. It’s harder. Amazingly, some light

Cameron has a dream. And Jeremy Corbyn wants to destroy it. Our belligerent prime minister has declared war on those inner-city council estates that foster poverty, despair, unemployment, truancy, social exclusion, (and an aversion to Tory candidates). His hope is to replace these crime-ridden concrete citadels with frondy low-rise dream-homes. It sounds like Syria organised by Foxtons. But consider the result as it takes shape in the prime minister’s mind. Acre upon acre of urban dereliction transformed into mini Chipping Nortons. A sofa from Habitat in every sitting room. A sea bass in every fridge. A sundial in every garden. A low-carbon Toyota Land Cruiser on every driveway. And a future

Corybn gave his wettest ever performance at PMQs. The party leaders had different theories about the authorship of the floods. Corbyn blamed Cameron. Cameron blamed the weather. Rainfall, he explained, had wept from the heavens in such unheralded quantities that a record-breaking dip-stick had to be lowered into the bucket to assess its full volume. Corbyn wouldn’t have this. He said government scrimping was at fault. He personified the issue with his usual set of hand-picked hankie-drenchers. He’d met a nice pair from Leeds, he said, called Chris and Victoria, whose holiday had been ruined by tides of sewage inundating their pressies. This prompted mystifying giggles from Tory backbenchers. Geography

Corbyn was back on drone duty at PMQs. He monotoned his way through six questions about NHS funding and gave the impression that a winter crisis would really make his Christmas. Ed Miliband had the same habit of suggesting that only mass-death could save him. Semi-comatose Corbs remained on ‘stand-by mode’ throughout. He didn’t react even when the Tories pounced on an unforced gaffe. As he offered his Christmas greetings to the nation, the Labour leader mentioned Britain’s very own space daredevil, Tim Peake, – ‘who is not on the planet.’ ‘Nor are you,’ hooted the Tories. Angus Robertson of the SNP asked David Cameron for ‘guarantees’ that Scotland won’t