Careful, fellow lefties! We’re clearly not being politically correct enough for sensitive right wingers again.

by Martin Odoni

So, did Jeremy Corbyn really say it? Did he call Theresa May, “Stupid woman” at Prime Minister’s Questions today?

Well, judging by slow motion replays of the moment of Corbyn’s irritated muttering, the answer appears to be No. It looks fairly clear to me that the word Corbyn uses begins with the letter P, and probably the first letter of the second syllable too, suggesting that, as his spokespeople claim, he was saying, “people”. He was referring to the childish hooting and catcalling from the Tory backbenchers.

But it amazes me the barefaced effrontery of so many anti-leftists that this is causing such a furore. Say Corbyn did call May a stupid woman; so what? This was PMQs, for Pete’s sake! It was the House of Commons! Of all the childish abuse, personal insults and schoolchild moments-of-mockery that happen in that most juvenile of debating forums day-in-day-out, Stupid woman is the one that everyone is getting their underwear in knots over? Seriously? All right, so the utter pig’s breakfast May has made of Brexit kind of indicates that she is indeed a stupid woman, but whether it is a fair description or otherwise, is this really causing so much fury?

Well of course not. No one really cares, it is of course being used as a distraction from the shambles of Brexit and the serious threat to the Prime Minister’s position, even from her own party. And given the Tories were saying only on Monday night that they would not indulge a Vote of No Confidence debate in the Prime Minister, apparently due to regarding it as some kind of a waste of time, it is pathetic how much time they are instead happy to waste on this. Apparently a man muttering under his breath is a more urgent issue than the Prime Minister carrying the whole country over a Brexit cliff. What a country we live in.

But let us for a moment indulge the theatrical whining from the Conservatives. This means they are getting self-righteous about ‘misogyny’.

The Conservatives?

The Conservatives, only a little over a week ago restored the whip to two MPs who had been suspended for acts of sexual depravity against women, and were still under investigation. One of them is an alleged rapist.

Charlie Elphicke and Andrew Griffiths have not been cleared yet of serious sexual misconduct.

The Tories are also the party who gave us one-time (and one-dimensional) Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, who has merrily talked about having Theresa May “chopped up in bags in my freezer”.

And then of course, there is the small matter of Boris Johnson, with his charming history of patronising female colleagues while he was Mayor of London.

(EDIT TO ADD: And then there is this little gem from ‘Spreadsheet-Phil’ Hammond to Andrea Jenkyns. And this hot little number from David Mundell to Yvette Cooper. Or this delightfully not-very-female-friendly policy from no less a figure than the Prime Minister herself.)

This is the party lecturing the Labour leader on misogyny? For real?

Among Corbyn’s treacherous troops, I expect Jess Phillips to jump on the Tory bandwagon for about the one hundred-thousand-million-billionth time. (Why on Earth is she even in the Labour Party?) Given her own tendency to joke about “knifing” Jeremy Corbyn, even symbolically – doubly tasteless in light of the assassination of Jo Cox – it would probably be advisable that she kept her foul gob shut instead. But when did she ever listen to sensible advice?

All of this outrage though, from the right. And the further right they are, the more outraged their reaction. The half of the spectrum that always bemoans ‘political-correctness-gone-mad’ is once again blowing its top about being ‘offended’. They never seem to notice the irony.

In other words, the Tory sneers at political correctness, as ever, translate as, “It’s only wrong to be offensive when you’re offending us.”

So careful now, Jez, and careful, everyone else. We have no wish to hurt the Tories’ feelings while they send homeless people to their deaths, do we?

The Joker making more sense than anyone in the real world, as usual.