Andy McSmith's Diary: The message of the unions to Jeremy Corbyn - get real

Jeremy Corbyn has gone the past two days without saying “Trident” in public. He had a wide-open opportunity during his 20-minute reply to David Cameron’s announcement on defence spending, which included the admission that the estimated cost of renewing Trident has jumped £25bn to £31bn. Corbyn acted as if he had not heard that bit.

On 24 November the SNP staged a Commons debate on whether Trident should be scrapped. The Jeremy Corbyn of old would have been in there on the back benches supporting them, but he never showed his face.

This is not just because official party policy and most of the Shadow Cabinet are against Jeremy on this one. He also has to reckon with the heads of the big trade unions who did so much to help get him elected. The leaders of the two biggest, Len McCluskey and Dave Prentis, have criticised him in public in past few days. Sir Paul Kenny, who heads the next-biggest affiliated union, the GMB, opted to tell the Labour leader what he thinks to his face.

Sir Paul has about 20,000 members whose jobs depend directly on arms manufacturing, which makes him very hawkish on defence spending. He could also hardly believe his ears when he heard Corbyn’s comment on the elimination of Mohammed Emwazi, alias “Jihadi John”, to the effect that he should have been arrested and put on trial. Sir Paul was in Corbyn’s office early on 24 November. From what I hear, his message was, basically, “Get real”.

Clegg’s a hit with students

Congratulations to Nick Clegg on smashing Nigel Farage when they went head-to-head in the Oxford Union. When they debated on television before the election, the general verdict was that Farage won. This time, the students voted 283 to 73 in favour of Clegg’s argument that we are better off in the EU than out.

It goes to show that nothing improves a politician’s popularity like being an election loser. That is why Jeremy Corbyn is sure to be the most loved politician of our era.

Another fine Ukip mess

Adrian Howard, Ukip’s candidate in Macclesfield at the general election, is proposing that Turkey should be expelled from Nato because of the shooting down of a Russian jet.

Turkey is, of course, the route through which recruits to Isis find their way into Syria and we need Turkey’s help in stopping them. Last week, this same genius from Ukip advocated forcing every mosque in the UK to close. What other ways can he think up to help Isis?

Hon member’s dilemma

If you are the child of an alcoholic, do you tell, or keep it secret? If you tell, are you breaking the fourth commandment that thou shalt honour thy mother and thy father?

The former cabinet minister Liam Byrne has wrestled with these problems and decided to reveal, in a moving speech in the Commons yesterday, that his father and grandfather were alcoholics, as a way in to pleading for more support for alcoholics’ children. “I concluded that I had to honour the boy who became a man who became my dad, because there was no help for him when he was growing up as the child of an alcoholic,” he explained.

Qualified for the job?

India Brummitt, a 24-year-old aide to Claire Perry, the transport minister, has lost her job, but gets a good reference.

“I have been very pleased with her work as my diary secretary,” Perry told the Wiltshire Gazette, adding: “I don’t really know what to believe about what is being said in the national press, but I do think it is right for her to leave political work.”

Perry advises David Cameron on preventing the sexualisation of children. The Mail on Sunday ran a story that her assistant had had sex on a pool table in a pub with Mark Clarke, a central character in all the bullying and blackmail allegations that have engulfed the Conservative youth movement. That does not make her unfit to work on protecting children, but it is – to put it mildly – embarrassing.