BOLTON’s Labour MPs were impressed by new Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s first appearance at Prime Minister’s Questions.
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There was no fisticuffs, no handbags at dawn, no jibes.
All six of his questions were asked within the first 20 minutes.
When asked whether he loved the United Kingdom , he said: “Of course I love this country”.
Coverage of the PMQs starts on BBC Two at 11.30am, as Daily Politics presenters Andrew Neil and Jo Coburn discuss the challenges facing Mr Corbyn. The new leader revealed he had “crowd sourced” ideas for questions, and had received more than 40,000 suggestions.
The opposition head urged Prime Minister David Cameron to use the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) session in parliament to answer questions posed by citizens rather than indulge in confrontations with the opposition.
With Marie happy to fight Corbyn’s corner on the airwaves, Mr S suspects the Labour leader may have found a member of the public to rival Ed Miliband’s friend Gareth from Hampstead Heath.
However, Mr Corbyn insisted he was proud to represent a multicultural constituency of people from all over the world, including Jews. “Labour’s leader turned up dishevelled at the Battle of Britain service and stood in mute silence as everyone sang “God Save the Queen'”, said the Sun’s editorial”.
When faced with a question from mental health worker Angela, for example, the PM awkwardly responded that changes can not be made without a “strong economy”.
“We will bring the Welfare Bill down by controlling rents and boosting wages, not by impoverishing families and socially cleansing our communities”.
Speaking in Brighton, ahead of appearing at a “Say No to Austerity” TUC conference fringe meeting with former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, Mr McDonnell told me: “Jeremy is trying to get as big a tent as possible”.
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“The present policy position of the party, decided collectively by the party – and that is the way we make policy in the party; Jeremy is very respectful of that collective approach – is that we accept the principle of the cap but it is not now before Parliament to have a vote to remove it altogether”, she said.
