Labour try to land blows on Tories but Corbyn is their undoing again

MPs were discussing cannabis. Or at least, some of them were. Most were absent. Sir Desmond Swayne (Con, New Forest West) scanned the largely vacant benches, and pondered. An awful thought had struck him.

“Where is everybody, Mr Speaker?” he asked. “I hope they’re not behind the bike sheds having a spliff!”

The Speaker looked at him reproachfully. Such a notion, he said, was unthinkable. Quite right too. Parliament doesn’t have any bike sheds.

The few MPS who were present had just heard Sajid Javid announce a review of the law on cannabis use for medicinal purposes.

In the past, such an announcement might have prompted uproar in the Commons, but yesterday it was met with widespread approval. Some MPS sought assurance that the Government would not permit the use of the drug for recreational purposes. The Home Secretary gave them his word. It’s interesting, though, that he was able to make the announcement at all.

At a Cabinet meeting only 24 hours earlier, Mr Javid had reportedly tried to propose the idea – only for Theresa May, apparently, to rebuff him, on the grounds that it wasn’t listed on the formal agenda. And yet now, here was Mr Javid, at the dispatch box, announcing this landmark review.

‘Perhaps he will raise it with his own leader – who says that there is a Brexit dividend!’

Who is in charge of this Government? If you have any idea, please write in. We’d love to know.

Staying with health, Labour MPS questioned ministers over NHS spending.

Well, they tried to question them, anyway. Unfortunately, their efforts were comprehensively undermined by one man. Jeremy Corbyn.

On Monday, the Prime Minister had said that her boost to NHS spending would be funded, in large part, by the “Brexit dividend” – that is, the millions of pounds in membership fees that the UK will no longer send the EU. In the Commons yesterday, Labour MPS argued that in practice there would be no such “dividend”, because, according to them, the sums saved would be dwarfed by the sums the UK would lose from leaving the single market.

Each time they said this, however, they received the same answer.

“If [Labour’s Ben Bradshaw] has an issue with the Brexit dividend,” said Stephen Barclay, the health minister, “then perhaps he will raise it with his own leader – who says that there is a Brexit dividend!”

And indeed he does. Just four months ago, Mr Corbyn declared that he would spend “the funds returned from Brussels after Brexit” on “our public services”. Which is precisely what the Tories say they’re going to do.

Labour MPS fumed in silence. It’s a wonder, really, that none of them snapped, and shouted, “Look, we don’t CARE what that clueless old goat said! In case you hadn’t noticed, we don’t actually support him! If it wasn’t for the fact that two thirds of our members are delusional cultists, we’d have dumped him ages ago!”

However strong the temptation, though, they nobly resisted it. Who says good manners are dead?