Pmqs

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

How do you unite the Labour party and cheer them up? Today the party’s MPs were cheering happily and laughing along at the jokes offered from their Dispatch Box for the first time in months. And on Monday, they managed to have a cheerful meeting of the parliamentary Labour party. One thing that was missing from both sessions was Jeremy Corbyn. The cheer that accompanied Angela Eagle as she got to her feet to ask her first question of George Osborne, who was standing in for David Cameron, was full and sincere. And though she didn’t have a particularly devastating series of questions – she managed to meander through the

Jeremy Corbyn is a rarity among politicians. All his enemies are on his own side. For the Tories, Ukip and the SNP, Corbyn is a dream made real. They could not love him more. As the riotous scenes at the shadow cabinet and parliamentary Labour party meetings this week showed, his colleagues see Corbyn and John McDonnell as modern Leninists who are mobilising their cadres to purge all dissidents from the party. Conversations with Corbyn’s aides show a gentler side to the new regime, however. They suggest the Corbynistas are unlikely to be able to control Labour MPs when they can barely control themselves. ‘Chaos’ was the word that came

Jezza started PMQs with a bit of a wobble. As he got to his feet the applause from his Labour ‘friends’ sounded like the hoarse whooshings of a punctured beach ball. Corbyn nervously offered his sympathy to the Paris terror victims and expressed concern that the slaughter of 129 innocents might increase Islamophobia in Britain. The attacks, he said, ‘have nothing in common with the 2 million Muslims who live here.’ David Cameron agreed, partially. He drew a distinction between ‘the religion of peace’ (which is Islam, in case you were getting confused) and the ‘bile spouted’ by terrorist killers. But, he said, ‘it’s not good enough to say there’s no

‘It’s getting longer and longer,’ grumped David Cameron at PMQs. A microphone picked up the aside as the session over-ran by 10 minutes. Why the delay? First, the Speaker. He’s keen to give as many backbenchers as possible a chance to pass unrecognised on national TV. Secondly, he adores the limelight himself. At the slightest pretext he’s up on his feet demanding silence on behalf of an entity called ‘the public’. That’s his name for the handful of grumblers and job-seekers who write in each week to complain that politicians aren’t speaking in chapel whispers. Thirdly there’s the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who reacts to Tory jeers by standing statue-still

Jeremy Corbyn’s growing confidence at Prime Minister’s Questions is almost perfectly in step with his growing unpopularity outside the Chamber. He has perfected his geography teacher stare of disapproval to the extent that Tory MPs now automatically fall silent when he talks for fear of being kept behind after class. And he isn’t leaping all over the place with a phone-in format that doesn’t hold the Prime Minister to account. This week, the Labour leader focused on tax credits, and highlighted David Cameron’s inability to answer his questions about whether he could guarantee that no-one would be worse off as a result of the changes. Cameron didn’t answer the questions

PMQs was a rather ill-tempered affair today. With tax credits and steel closures dominating proceedings, the two sets of benches went at each other with vigour. This was much more like an old-style PMQs than the other Corbyn sessions. The Labour leader began on the tax credits issue. His questions were beginning to rile Cameron, who — in a poor choice of words — said that he was ‘delighted’ that tax credit cuts had passed the Commons. But Corbyn then changed tack to ask about the steel industry. This eased the pressure on the Prime Minister and allowed him to regain the initiative. Corbyn finished his set of questions by

Corbyn’s PMQ’s strategy is now clear. Hopeful emailers send their lifestyle details to Labour HQ and a computer sifts the figures to find the voter likeliest to cause the prime minister’s cheeks to blush purple with shame. Today’s lucky winner was Kelly, (no surname given), a single mum on £7.20 per hour who works for 40 hours a week while caring for a disabled sprog. Did the prime minister know how much the tax credit deductions will cost her? Cameron hadn’t a clue so he talked about the rising minimum wage and falling council rents. Corbyn gave the answer: Kelly loses £1,800 a year. The question assumes that we all