Corbyn’s team are trying – and failing – to turn him into a famous wit

Poor grey sad Mr Corbyn. So angry. So useless. And so weird as a visual spectacle. His sharp-featured head looks, from a certain viewpoint, like an anvil pebble-dashed with porridge oats. But guess what? Today he scored a victory against Mrs May. And guess what? He blew it.

First he revealed his team’s latest attempt to turn him into a famous wit. He claimed that Mrs May had yesterday marginalised parliament while claiming to restore its primacy. Then the pay-off. ‘Not so much the Iron Lady as the Irony Lady.’ Why is that a lousy gag? Bad mouth-feel. No punchy consonants. But it looks deceptively good on the page so Mr Corbyn’s comedy apprentices must have hoped it would fly.

Then, perhaps accidentally, he skewered her. Mrs May wouldn’t reveal whether Britain will pay for access to European markets. He asked again. No reply. Job done. He had her. Total triumph. But instead of building on it he did his tetchy park-keeper routine.

‘Still no answer,’ he wheedled, with his head bobbing up and down as if he’d just dropped a man-hole cover on his toe.