Mr Corbyn should have spoken up, but he was too busy doing nothing

For a man of 68, Jeremy Corbyn is in tremendous shape. He’s slim. He eats healthily. He’s brimming with energy. I do sometimes wonder, though, about his hearing.

Yesterday at Prime Minister’s Questions – the final instalment before Parliament breaks up for the summer – Bob Blackman (Con, Harrow East) asked about university. Normally, this is a subject in which Mr Corbyn takes a keen interest. At rallies and in interviews, he speaks about it with ferocious passion. So, when the subject was raised at PMQS, you’d naturally expect him to be all ears.

Teenagers from poor backgrounds, noted Mr Blackman, were applying for university in greater numbers than ever. Could the Prime Minister, he inquired innocently, think of any leading politician who might want to apologise for having falsely claimed the exact opposite, in a cynical bid to win young people’s votes? With a look of vengeful glee, Theresa May turned to Mr Corbyn. Disappointingly, though, the Labour leader appeared not to have heard Mr Blackman’s question. Nor did he appear to hear Mrs May’s reply – in which she confirmed that, contrary to Mr Corbyn’s claims, more and more teenagers from poor backgrounds were applying to university, evidently undeterred by tuition fees.

Instead, for the entire duration of the exchange, Mr Corbyn was engaged

‘Misleading the public, I feel sure, is the last thing Mr Corbyn would want to do’

upon the important task of putting the lid back on his pen, and tucking it in the inside pocket of his jacket.

While the rest of the Commons listened to the Prime Minister urging him, with some vigour, to apologise for spreading false information, Mr Corbyn sat oblivious, his energies focused exclusively on the matter of his pen. The task apparently required his undivided attention. His brow was furrowed, his lips pursed, his concentration full. Tucking the pen into the jacket pocket, it seemed, was not only a test of the intellect, but a challenge fraught with potential danger. He didn’t look up once. Not even when the Prime Minister wondered what had happened to Mr Corbyn’s pledge to “deal with” existing student debt, announced during the election campaign, but seemingly now abandoned. What a pity. The Tories must speak more loudly in future. After all, if Mr Corbyn fails to hear them when they point out he’s got his facts wrong, he might end up accidentally telling yet another rally that fewer teenagers from poor backgrounds are applying to university. And misleading the public, I feel sure, is the last thing he’d want to do.

Still, to look on the bright side, I can report that Mr Corbyn’s hard work yesterday paid off: by the time Mrs May had finished talking about university applications and Labour pledges, he’d succeeded in both putting the lid back on his pen, and tucking it in the inside pocket of his jacket, wholly without mishap.

He can head off for the long summer recess well satisfied with his efforts.