What my dear old Mum would have told Mr Cameron: It’s manners that make a gentleman

PERHAPS if I had been there, I might have understood it better. But after watching the exchange on catch-up TV and reading it in cold print, I was mystified by the howls of approving laughter from the Tory benches that greeted David Cameron’s remark this week about his mother.

For those who missed Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Jeremy Corbyn had been droning on as usual about the savagery of the Government’s ‘austerity cuts’ when Mr Cameron was heckled as he rose to reply.

Cupping her hand round her mouth, Labour’s Angela Eagle yelled out ‘Ask your Mum!’ — a reference to the news earlier this month that the PM’s mother, Mary, had signed a petition against cuts to children’s services by Tory-led Oxfordshire County Council.

After a dramatic silence, the Prime Minister roared: ‘Ask my mother? I know what my mother would say. She’d look across the Dispatch Box and she’d say: “Put on a proper suit, do up your tie and sing the National Anthem!” ’

How his supporters clutched their sides and rocked in helpless mirth, as if this was the most devastating put- down ever uttered in that hallowed chamber. Even Speaker John Bercow, no friend of the PM, appeared to find it hilarious.

Curmudgeon

But was it? Call me an old curmudgeon, but I thought the barb missed its target completely, inviting sympathy for Mr Corbyn while showing Mr Cameron in his least attractive light. What’s more, I reckon it was a little insulting to the PM’s mother.

For one thing, it was blatantly not as spontaneous as he wanted us to believe. Rather, it was a carefully rehearsed retort, stored up since it emerged a fortnight ago that his Mum had signed that petition.

Donning my Sherlock Holmes deerstalker, let me present my two pieces of killer evidence. The first is that instead of rebuking Ms Eagle, who had dragged 81year-old Mrs Cameron into the debate, the Prime Minister directed his attack at Mr Corbyn, who hadn’t even mentioned her.

Doesn’t this suggest to you, my dear Watson, that he had expected the Labour leader to taunt him over that Oxfordshire petition and had no alternative jibes ready for anyone else?

My second clue? Study the video of PMQs, and you will notice that though Mr Corbyn was not wearing a suit (he seldom does), he was unmistakably wearing a tie, which was properly done up.

So why did Mr Cameron suggest that his mother would have glared across the Dispatch Box and instructed ‘Do up your tie’?

This was no spur- of-the-moment outburst of righteous anger against anyone who would stoop so low as to try to recruit a lioness against her loving and loyal cub. It was a comeback prepared days ago, probably when Mr Corbyn’s tie was at halfmast. Who knows, it may even have been vetted and polished by the team of jokesmiths at No 10.

I just wonder what Mary Cameron herself may have made of it. I hasten to say that I’ve never met the lady, but everything I’ve heard and read about her, I have liked.

I have a mental picture (though I can’t testify to its accuracy) of a no-nonsense, patriotic, humorous if slightly formidable woman, rooted in the countryside. I would guess she is a regular C of E churchgoer.

She is certainly a pillar of the local community, with a highly developed social conscience and a strong sense of civic duty — as witnessed by her work as a parish councillor and her long service as a magistrate.

Indeed, it was partly from hearing about Mr Cameron’s solid, middle-class, Home Counties background — his JP mother and stockbroker father, who bravely endured repeated operations on his deformed legs — that I was persuaded the Tory Party would be in good hands when he became leader. (I liked his professed euroscepticism, too, but that’s another story!)

Disgraceful

True, I might have preferred someone who actually knew at first hand what it meant to have to count the pennies. But Margaret Thatchers are as rare as honesty in today’s politics. For want of another Iron Lady, I reckoned the party couldn’t go far wrong with a well brought-up young man, schooled from the cradle in a love of duty, justice, Britain and British institutions.

And, yes, I can well picture the Mary Cameron of my imagination ordering the schoolboy David to put on a respectable suit, do up his tie and sing the National Anthem. She may even have said something of the sort to the odd prisoner in the dock, during her days on the bench.

What I find very hard to believe (though, again, I cannot stress strongly enough that her son knows her infinitely better than I) is that a woman of her generation and upbringing would say anything so insulting to the leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition.

Wouldn’t she think it just plain rude — as rude, dare I say it, as her beloved son appears to have become after six years at No 10? Might she not think it a bit daft, too, to go around telling 66-year-old lifelong Republicans that they must sing the National Anthem?

Certainly, she may confide to friends and family that she thinks Mr Corbyn is a frightfully scruffy little man. I dare say she may also think it disgraceful that he refused to sing God Save The Queen at a Battle of Britain memorial ceremony. I know my dear late Mum would have had very strong feelings on the matter.

But would Mrs Cameron really have said such things to Mr Corbyn’s face, in answer to his question about public spending cuts? I refuse to believe she’s as rude and batty as her son makes out.

Heaven knows, I carry no torch for the Labour leader. But in my view, he emerged from Wednesday’s exchange with a great deal more gravitas than the Prime Minister.

Sneer

When at last the Tory hilarity had faded, he told Mr Cameron: ‘ My late mother would have said: “Stand up for the principle of a health service free at the point of use for everybody.” ’

All right, he doesn’t make the late Mrs Corbyn sound like a barrel of laughs (perhaps it was from her that he inherited his less-than-sparkling gift for repartee). But at least there was more dignity in his remark about his mother than there was in the Prime Minister’s about his.

Later that afternoon, not content to leave it there, Mr Corbyn tweeted a quote from Einstein: ‘If most of us are ashamed of shabby clothes & shoddy furniture, let us be more ashamed of shabby ideas & shoddy philosophies.’

I think this is what the French call l’esprit d’escalier — literally, the ‘spirit of the staircase’, something we wish we had said, but think of only after we’ve left the room.

It might have been impressive if he’d come up with the quote the moment Mr Cameron had launched his attack. It was less so after he’d spent ages scratching his head and consulting his aides.

But the point holds true. Leave aside that the Prime Minister frequently disobeys the advice he attributes to his mother, throwing off his tie whenever he wishes to convince us he’s ‘pumped up’.

It really does reflect badly on him that he would rather sneer at Mr Corbyn’s clothes than answer questions put to him in the House.

Indeed, there may be a lesson for him in a rhyme my sisters and I learned at our late mother’s knee. It ends with the salutary sentiment: Not all the fine things that fine ladies possess Should teach them the poor to despise. For ’tis in good manners, and not in good dress That the truest gentility lies.