HENRY DEEDES sees the Home Secretary endure a Labour barrage 

Jeremy Corbyn’s yellowing fangs were practically slobbering when he rocked up at PMQs yesterday.

On the strike of noon, the old boy sat bolt upright, his feet breaking into an excited little tap dance. Tottering into the chamber at that very moment was Priti Patel. As the Home Secretary made her way awkwardly to her seat, Jezza’s eyes pursued her the way a guileless labrador follows a cat’s progress along the garden wall.

There was a momentary hush when she took her place in the centre of the Government’s front bench. Was that a sisterly nod of support across the divide from shadow Leader of the House Valerie Vaz? Chancellor Rishi Sunak caressed her shoulder as if to say ‘tin hat on, old girl’.

This may have been Prime Minister’s Questions but no one doubted it was the Home Secretary who was in for the roughest time. With accusations of bullying mounting by the minute, her Labour opponents smelt blood.

It took a while for Mr Corbyn to wade into the row. With a killer virus on the loose, he could hardly be seen to be getting his priorities wrong, meaning we were served up a bit of coronavirus back-and-forth as an amuse-bouche.

When Mr Corbyn finally got to the bullying, he did his best to cock it up – as he often does when presented with a golden opportunity. He demanded the Government commit to an independent investigation, something the Prime Minister pointed out that Michael Gove had done on Monday.

Once again the Labour leader accused Boris of being ‘part-time Prime Minister’ for not addressing the matter earlier. Groans thudded around the chamber. What was a decent attack line last week had since gathered several layers of mildew. ‘Self-isolate!’ heckled Shaun Bailey (Con, West Bromwich West).

It was only when Mr Corbyn arrived at the ever fattening folder of evidence against the Home Secretary that he began to gain traction. He pointed out there had been complaints from three different departments she had worked in down the years, which he claimed ‘tens of thousands of pounds’ of government money were used to cover up.

Boris put on his best show of support. The Home Secretary is doing a fine job, he insisted. ‘I’ll take no lessons about bullying from the leader of a party where female MPs were bullied so badly in the matter of anti-Semitism that they actually left the party.’

The Tory cheap seats roared. Of course they did. Such is British politics at the moment they’d roar at a Ken Loach comedy. Mr Corbyn then raised a recent story about a civil servant who worked under Patel in the Department of Work and Pensions who reportedly tried to kill herself. Oooh. Gloves off time.

The Prime Minister was flapping. He branded Mr Corbyn ‘a full-time neo-Marxist’ who had no control over his own party. A duff response.

Throughout this heavy artillery fire, Mrs Patel sat almost motionless, her jaw clenched in defiance like a beleaguered police suspect sticking doggedly to their story. Occasionally, she would mutter something out loud – whether for the Prime Minister’s benefit or her own, it was hard to say.

As the session rode on, it didn’t get any easier. Matthew Pennycook (Lab, Greenwich and Woolwich) demanded confirmation that any Cabinet member found in breach of the ministerial code would be sacked. Thangam Debbonaire (Lab, Bristol West) said under the Government ‘allegations of bullying or just being incompetent get you promoted, whereas standing up to it, you lose your job’. Probably worth pointing out Mrs Debonnaire was one of a number of Labour MPs to have previously complained about life under Jeremy Corbyn.

The session overran, the first time it has been allowed to under Speaker Hoyle, who then made us endure an overly long, not to mention wildly self-indulgent, resignation speech from ex-business secretary Andrea Leadsom. Goodness it dragged on. The Home Secretary, I noticed, smiled and laughed politely throughout. Grateful, perhaps, that the focus had finally shifted away from her. But for how long?