How Jeremy Corbyn ‘faced down’ his MP critics: by not answering their questions

There is no small irony in the fact that Labour MPs were this evening reminded by their colleagues not to brief details of tonight’s parliamentary Labour party meeting before a spokesman for Corbyn went out into the Committee Corridor to, er, brief journalists about what happened at the meeting. The official account is that there was a ‘sea change in the atmosphere’ and that ‘Jeremy faced down his critics’. MPs coming out did say that the meeting wasn’t as shouty as previous encounters, but one moderate suggested that this was because there is a greater sense of resignation and that ‘people just can’t be bothered to get angry any more’. Corbyn had also come better prepared, with supportive contributions from MPs such as Rebecca Long-Bailey and Louise Haigh.

The two main themes of the questions from MPs were Europe and prostitution – the latter a row entirely confected by Jeremy Corbyn himself.