St Jeremy is sorely tried in Scottish hustings

Ever since Jeremy Corbyn was elected Labour leader, Tory researchers have been scouring the archives for evidence of gaffes and outrages he may have committed during his lengthy and previously obscure career. Now, it seems, Owen Smith’s researchers have been scouring them too.

“I’ve never used bad language against anyone,” sniffed Mr Corbyn last night, at the latest leadership hustings in Glasgow. Presumably he said this to remind Labour members that, a few days ago, Mr Smith had called him “a lunatic”.

Mr Smith retorted that he’d apologised for using such an insensitive word.

But did the audience know, he went on, that in 1992 a Tory MP had been publicly derided as “a lunatic” by one J Corbyn?

In surprise, everyone looked at St Jeremy.

“I’d rather we got on to discussing politics,” he sniffed, in a tone that somehow suggested he was the injured party.

Week by week, the Labour leadership hustings are growing bitterer. At the start of this one, each candidate was asked to guess what his opponent’s supporters saw in him. Their answers were brief, and dripping with the faintest of praise. Mr Corbyn noted that Mr Smith “has experience in the private sector”. Translation: he’s a neoliberal bourgeois capitalist corporate sell-out. Of Mr Corbyn, the best Mr Smith could say was that “He’s got convictions and he’s stuck with them, all this time later.” Translation: the silly old goat is stuck in the past.

The most bad-tempered exchanges were over Brexit. And it wasn’t just the candidates who were cross. Mr Smith was booed and heckled by a few members of the audience for saying he’d block the Government from triggering Article 50.

Then Mr Smith attacked Mr Corbyn for refusing to make the same threat.

Clearly, he snapped, Mr Corbyn was secretly “happy with the result” of the EU referendum. Mr Corbyn protested his innocence. Remarkably, and perhaps for the first time at an event attended by Labour members, Mr Corbyn received some jeers. He looked almost as surprised by it as I did.

Then Mr Smith started asking Mr Corbyn whether he’d secretly voted to leave the EU. Mr Corbyn neglected to answer. Gleefully Mr Smith asked him again.

Only after another round of badgering did Mr Corbyn insist that he’d voted Remain, adding that he was saddened that Mr Smith should even ask. The only other people who’d doubted him, he sniffed, “were the Daily Mail.” The Daily Mail! Heavens. Even worse than the private sector!