Heckle of the week

I did not quite hear what sent the House of Commons - and MPs on all sides - into fits of laughter early in Jeremy Corbyn's speech today on the EU issue, but you can find the event described on The Sun's website here.

The Labour leader outlined his visit to last week's EU summit, saying to the PM: "Last week, like you, I was in Brussels meeting with heads of government and leaders of European socialist parties, one of whom said to me..."

At this point Christopher Pincher and Simon Hoare called out together "Who are you?"

Comments

Chris Whiteside said…
Thanks! He really didn't like that one, did he?
8:35 pm
Jim said…
No he did not, but if they were half way competent then it would not come to this. It really is not a good state for the house of commons to be in. Its taking everyday people to try and hold the PM and his government to account as the official opposition are not able to do it.

I thought the same when Ed Miliband was leader of the opposition, then it was rife, but not like now, not at all as bad as now.

This is a very, very dark time for British politics, very dark indeed.
9:29 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
Swings and roundabouts

Broadly I think it is very bad for British politics to have an official opposition which is such a joke.

There may however be some swings and roundabouts with this one.

For example, it may in an ironic way mean that the degree of open debate Conservative members and MPs allow themselves during the referendum campaign may be a bit greater. People may think they can afford to be more honest and open and take the risk of expressing opinions which they might keep quiet if the Labour party had a competent leader.

The thing about Corbyn is that because he would be relatively easy to beat but utterly disastrous for Britain if he did win, I'm thinking that Conservatives may think that they can get away with expressing some strongly held opinions because Labour are even more divided about National Defence than the Conservatives are on the EU and won't be able to exploit Conservative divisions, but also that the Conservatives know they will have to come back together after the referendum and work together to win the election because the alternative is so dire.
10:25 pm
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