Theresa May laughed more than she ever has before at Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s Questions, to the point where she almost appeared to malfunction.
Flanked by Chancellor Philip Hammond and Welsh Secretary Alun Cairns, May wore her mirth on her sleeve and chuckled so heartily she reverberated for a few seconds.
Cynics claimed it was staged, as if May weren’t genuinely finding Jeremy Corbyn asking about social care funding in Surrey hilarious.
She chortled as the Labour leader pushed her on claims there was a “gentleman’s agreement” between her Government and Surrey County Council so it could avoid a proposed referendum on raising council tax to fund care for the elderly.
Corbyn had earlier grilled her on a series of leaked texts from the council leader and memorandum of understanding on this.
In Wednesday’s pre-budget PMQs, May guffawed as Corbyn said: “The text, Mr Speaker, said there was a memorandum of understanding, the PM said there was no deal, she is now unclear about this.”
The whole thing put political journalist Stephen Bush off his lunch.