Corbyn made a right Horlicks of it amid the rising Tory laughter
PORCELAIN sweetie-pie Emily Thornberry, Labour’s answer to Mick McManus, had said on Tuesday’s Newsnight that she and her colleagues would engage in ‘handto-hand combat’ with the Government over Brexit.
Madness. Do Labour not want to win their coming by-elections?
At noon yesterday the same Shadow Foreign Secretary Thornberry, beefy forearms bared, was sitting beside Jeremy Corbyn as PMQs got underway.
Within minutes Mr Corbyn was making such a Horlicks of it, and the MPs sitting behind him were looking so thunderous, that hand-to-hand combat seemed more likely to erupt between Labour members and their hapless leadership.
Poor old Corbyn had a ghastly day. There he was, all limbered up to demand that Theresa May publish a White Paper about her Brexit plans. The script was written.
He had run through the wording in rehearsals. It was going to be a zinger, just you see! He took his place on the front bench with a superior air, one eyebrow raised with nonchalant confidence.
But before Mr Corbyn could put his first question, a Tory backbencher called Chris Philp (Croydon South) had a go. The swine ruined it for Corbyn. Young Philp, a loyalist, coughed up a question which had plainly been planted by the Tory Whips: would Mrs May publish a White Paper?
‘Yes,’ she said, with an air so reasonable, a Remainer could have snapped his pencil.
Yes? She said yes? Nooooo! Mr Corbyn was called to speak barely three seconds later. Abandon ship! Klaxons must have been hooting in his head. The PM had just caved in on the very question he was going to put. Nightmare. Drat. Dagnabit. Rubber ring for Mr Corbyn, please.
He flailed. First he made a reference to a recent shooting in Belfast and I am afraid he made an unfortunate error, being under the impression that it had been fatal.
Then, as the Tory benches scented his panic and started to roll about the place, Mr Corbyn went into auto-guppy fish, opening and closing his mouth, before ranting that Mrs May had wasted a lot of time. ‘May we know when that White Paper will be available to us and why it is taking so long for us to get it?’ he bawled, over rising laughter from Mrs May and her team. Five more times Mr Corbyn approached the despatch box. Five more times it went wrong, particularly after Mrs May started quoting Labour’s Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, who had said the Tories had no intention to dilute workers’ rights during Brexit. This was the opposite of Mr Corbyn’s claims.
The Labour benches were a picture. Bigboned Welsh MPs Gerald Jones and Chris Elmore sat with arms folded across their bellies – two peeved pashas. Tireless greaser Ian Lucas (Wrexham) and Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) heckled the PM but other figures such as Hilary Benn, Vernon Coaker and Pat McFadden and many more sat utterly still, faces drawn into masks of dismay. A former Labour minister threw me a private look of imploring despair, rolling his eyes, shaking his head as Mr Corbyn’s questions went down the khazi.
LITTLE Wes Streeting from Ilford laughed. Neil Coyle walked out (more Tory cheers). Miss Thornberry chewed her upper lip. Point of Order: The session began with Speaker Bercow telling the House that one Win Myint, Speaker of the Hluttaw (the Burmese parliament) was in the gallery. Bercow told the House to welcome Mr Myint. Burma is a fledgling democracy and Mr Bercow likes making freebie visits there but this was strictly out of order. MPs are not supposed to refer to the galleries. The Squeaker has himself upbraided MPs for this in the past. As for Mr Myint, I hope he enjoyed PMQs. I am sure he is an admirable Speaker. Perhaps he could give Bercow some tips.
Finally, as far as that Brexit White Paper goes, one of my correspondents, name of Graham, proposes that it be called a Red, White and Blue Paper.