How These Things Work

The first time that anyone ever heard of Stephen Doughty was when he resigned live on air from Jeremy Corbyn's front bench by arrangement with Laura Kuenssberg, who had thus manufactured her own news. Doughty would have dropped his trousers if he had been told to do so. He was that desperate for media approval.

And on Politics Live, he has just told Kuenssberg that, "You know how these things work, the Government has a majority of 80," so there was no reason for the Opposition to turn up and vote on legislation. Well, in that case, then the Opposition ought not to be paid. At the very least, Short Money should be divided equally among those MPs who could indeed be bothered to provide an Opposition.

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