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#Piggate makes an appearance at PMQs

Although Jeremy Corbyn has decided to adopt a more civil approach when it comes to PMQs, the message appears to have not yet reached all Labour MPs. After a fairly polite exchange between Corbyn and Cameron today, it fell upon Labour’s Kevin Brennan to lower the tone with a pig jibe.

Speaking about Lord Ashcroft’s David Cameron biography Call Me Dave — which made headlines last month over a section suggesting that Cameron had once enjoyed intimate relations with a pig, Brennan asked the Prime Minister when he had found out about Lord Ashcroft’s non-dom status as the account in the book had differed to Cameron’s version of events. While Lord Ashcroft claims he told Cameron about his non-dom status in 2009, the Prime Minister said in 2010 that he did not know about Ashcroft’s tax status. Pressing Cameron on the subject, the Labour MP couldn’t resist including a pig jibe, going on to ask if Cameron was telling porkies.

Happily Cameron appeared to be able to see the funny side, while managing to dodge the question. He said that although he thought MPs ought to have better things to do with their time than read the tome, should Brennan wish to read it, he has a complimentary copy he can pass around in order to spare sales:

‘What I would say to the honourable gentleman is I can think of many better uses of your time than reading that book. I actually managed to procure a free copy and in order not to give any one royalties I’d gladly lend him a copy.’

However, given that Lord Ashcroft has said the royalties will go to military charities, Mr S suspects Cameron’s gesture could be seen as rather uncharitable.

Meanwhile, Cameron’s decision to not answer the question directly and instead answer that the Conservatives had agreed ‘to legislate so that non-doms could not sit in either House’ has led to angry response. Lord Ashcroft’s co-author Isabel Oakeshott says Cameron’s failure to deny Ashcroft’s version of events shows that the account in the book is true.

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