Jeremy Corbyn was yesterday accused of lying to Parliament after he denied calling Theresa May a ‘stupid woman’ in the Commons. Lip-readers said the Labour leader muttered ‘stupid woman’ during a televised exchange with the Prime Minister. Mr Corbyn claimed he had said ‘stupid people’ and refused to apologise. Almost every lip reader consulted by politicians and journalists this afternoon agrees that Jeremy Corbyn called Theresa May a ‘stupid woman’ under his breath at PMQs.
Experts said the shape formed by the lips for the letter ‘W’ was impossible to confuse with the ‘P’ of ‘people’. Mr Corbyn’s denial sparked disbelief on the Tory benches. Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom said the public would ‘draw their own conclusions’. Some female Labour MPs also condemned their leader’s remarks, sparking a death threat against one of them from a Corbyn fanatic.
Mr Corbyn’s comments should be investigated by the parliamentary standards commissioner, according to Alistair Carmichael, a Lib Dem former minister.
Tory MP Rachel Maclean said steps should be taken to verify the video evidence ‘and get the apology the Prime Minister deserves’. However, conduct in the Commons chamber is the domain of Speaker John Bercow and he ruled it was not a matter for the commissioner. He also said he could not take action because Mr Corbyn had issued a denial and his words were not recorded on tape.
The Labour leader’s comments sparked a huge row in the Commons with Tory MPs demanding Mr Corbyn return to Parliament to apologise. Only one expert quoted agrees with Mr Corbyn’s version – that he said ‘stupid people’ to the Tory benches in general rather than ‘stupid woman’ to Mrs May. But that opinion was outvoted by the lipreaders who said – judging by the shape of his mouth – they thought Mr Corbyn said ‘woman’.
His denial has sparked further outrage, including from Piers Morgan, who has asked why anyone should trust a further word out of the Labour leader’s mouth if he is happy to deny something ‘we can all see he did’. Among the lipreaders consulted about Corbyn’s comments, their verdict broke down as follows :
For the prosecution:
Famous deaf percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie, who can read lips, is quoted by BBC Radio, The Sun, the Mirror, the Express, the Guardian, the Times, and in our own report for MailOnline she was ‘very certain’ he had said woman.
Her comments came via Tim Johns, who produces the Jeremy Vine show on BBC radio, and who tweeted: ‘I just showed Evelyn Glennie, the famous percussionist, the footage of Jeremy Corbyn in the Commons. She’s deaf and can lip read. She wasn’t aware of the story and her interpretation of what he said was ‘stupid woman’. She says she’s very certain.’
Sky News reports the consensus of a ‘team’ of lip readers contradicted Labour’s denials, and that Mr Corbyn did indeed call the PM a ‘stupid woman’. Sky says its experts, including former expert witness forensic lip reader Tina Lannin, have concluded the mouth shape for ‘wo’ for woman is unmistakeable.
Speaker John Bercow said he had consulted ‘lip speakers’ who believed the word was ‘woman’, but he added he himself accepted the Labour leader’s denial.
West Wing actor Rob Lowe, who is deaf in one ear, also waded into the row, tweeting he had seen Mr Cobryn ‘say it with his own eyes’.
For the defence:
Forensic lip-reader Jessica Rees told the Mirror: ‘It’s very clear if you lipread him he’s saying ‘stupid people’.’
Speaker Bercow, who has insisted he did not see the incident and has promised to review the footage, found himself in hot water when Leader of the House Andrea Leadsom pointed out he was accused of having said the same thing to her.
She raised a point of order to refer to an incident earlier this year where Mr Bercow was accused of calling her a ‘stupid woman’. She said: ‘If individuals who are found to have made unwelcome remarks should apologise, why it is that when an opposition member found that you had called me a ‘stupid woman’, you did not apologise in this chamber?’ After repeated jeers and banging from Tory MPs, Mr Bercow said the matter had been ‘treated of’ previously.
Mr Corbyn’s jibe came toward the end of a fractious session of Prime Minister’s Questions, during which Mrs May mocked the Labour leader over his failure to follow through on a threat to call a vote of no confidence in the Government. She said Mr Corbyn had ‘bottled it’ and suggested his on-off threats were like something from ‘Christmas pantomime season’. Visibly furious, the Labour leader was then seen to apparently mutter the words ‘stupid woman’.
Footage of the incident went viral on social media and Mr Corbyn watched a clip on a Labour MP’s phone before holding frantic conversations with senior colleagues. Tory MPs tried to draw Mr Bercow’s attention to the incident by gathering around the Speaker’s chair and brandishing mobile phones. Amid chaotic scenes, Mr Bercow agreed to review the video evidence while coming under fire from Mrs Leadsom and Tory MP Vicky Ford. Both accused him of having used the same sexist remark against them.
Mr Corbyn was dragged back to the Commons chamber three hours later to hear Mr Bercow reveal that ‘lip speaking’ experts had concluded he did call the Prime Minister a ‘stupid woman’. Mr Bercow said it was ‘easy to see’ why people thought Mr Corbyn had used the words, but added it was not possible for anyone to be ‘100 per cent certain’. Mr Corbyn told MPs: ‘During Prime Minister’s Question Time today, I referred to those who I believe were seeking to turn a debate about the national crisis facing our country into a pantomime as “stupid people”.
‘Mr Speaker I did not use the words “stupid woman” about the Prime Minister or anyone else, and am completely opposed to the use of sexist or misogynist language in absolutely any form at all.’ Mrs Maclean told MPs: ‘Read my lips: I don’t believe him.’ Members are banned from accusing each other of lying to Parliament, but in an unusual move, Mr Bercow let her remarks pass.
Former Tory chairman Sir Patrick McLoughlin said he had seen the incident himself, telling the House: ‘He muttered words, which were quite clearly visible, accusing the Prime Minister of being a stupid woman’. He later told reporters: ‘He seemed to panic when he realised he’d been spotted. He virtually ran out of the chamber to give him time to try and cover things up. He tries to present himself as a loveable father figure, but the mask has slipped.’
Mrs May was asked about the incident and replied: ‘I think that everybody in this House, particularly on the 100th anniversary of women getting the vote, should be aiming to encourage women to come into this chamber and to stand in this chamber, and should therefore use appropriate language in this chamber when they are referring to female members.’
Labour MP Stella Creasy was among those urging Mr Corbyn to say sorry for his ‘stupid, dinosaur’ comments. She added: ‘This is not OK. PMQs is a hotbed of emotions but I hope that Jeremy will accept this kind of behaviour isn’t his normal good nature or what we expect of progressive men.’
Fellow Labour MP Jess Phillips said: ‘He shouldn’t call her a stupid woman. He should apologise if he did, it is sexist.’ Mr Corbyn’s wife last night insisted the Labour leader was not at fault. Laura Alvarez, who at 49 is two decades his junior, rarely speaks in public, but yesterday she leapt to her husband’s defence.
Accompanying Mr Corbyn as he left Parliament, she said: ‘He did not say anything. He is the most respectful person in the world. He respects everyone.’ Mr Corbyn’s hard-Left allies also rallied round. The Momentum pressure group said Mr Corbyn’s Tory critics should spend ‘more time ending their austerity agenda which is destroying women’s lives across the country’.
Miss Creasy faced a backlash on social media, with one Twitter user branding her a ‘right-wing red Tory Blairite’ for criticising the ‘stupid woman’ jibe. The user, identified only as Rozalia Luxenburg, added: ‘The only good Blairite is a dead one.’ Dame Margaret Beckett accused Conservative MPs of trying to stage an ‘orchestrated riot’ in order to embarrass the Labour leader and distract attention from Brexit.
Tory grandee Sir Desmond Swayne said he would be ‘deeply concerned’ if MPs were going to be held to account for everything they muttered under their breath. After My Corbyn returned to the House of Commons to insist he did not say ‘stupid woman’, but rather, ‘stupid people’, some on Twitter exploded in outrage including journalist Piers Morgan. He called the Labour leader’s denials a ‘flagrant lie’ and said Mr Corbyn was ‘digging himself an even deeper hole’ by claiming he said ‘stupid people’.
