Tom Peck's Sketch: Day the Quiet Man drowned out the Even Quieter Man of the Commons

Never again can he or this Government claim that we are all in this together

Jeremy Corbyn trained his fire on George Osborne, calling for him to consider his position (PA)

Following a Freedom of Information request and an extensive legal battle, I can exclusively reveal that Jeremy Corbyn, MP for Islington North, is Her Majesty’s Leader of the Opposition.

I know, I know. I couldn’t believe it either. And it gets worse. For fulfilling this function, Corbyn receives an official salary of £58,000, on top of his normal MP’s salary of £67,060, and has use of a taxpayer-funded car and driver.

According to parliamentary convention, this money is paid from the public purse on the understanding that the holder of the office make some attempt to hold the government of the day to account.

In this duty, Corbyn has something in common with my own, generally less well remunerated trade, which is why over the course of the weekend, if you happened to find yourself infinitesimally briefly in contact with any part of the print, broadcast, online, Morse code, flag semaphore or expressive dance-based media, you may have heard mention of the name: Iain Duncan Smith. IDS. Dot dot dash. Dot dot. Dot dot dot.

Duncan Smith, you see, walked out of the Government on Friday night, protesting that George Osborne’s Budget had funded tax breaks for the highest earners, by removing £3,500 a year from around 190,000 disabled people who need that money to pay people to help them get dressed and go to the toilet.

On that basis, when the Prime Minister gave a statement to the House, with regard to the fact that within 48 hours that policy had already been forcibly reversed, there was a sense, among those looking on, that when Corbyn came to reply, Duncan Smith’s name, or his parliamentary soubriquet, “The Honourable Member for Chingford and Woodford Green” might get a mention.

If you don’t believe me, check the transcript. You’ll find Paula Sherriff condemning the “vagina added tax”, which the Prime Minister said would “live on in Hansard for many years to come”.

But in the passage underneath Jeremy Corbyn, you’ll find no mention of by far the most damaging attack on Cameron in his six years as Prime Minister. Nothing on one of the most senior figures in Government claiming the party’s leadership don’t care about the poor and the disabled “because they don’t vote for us”.

Liz Kendall – remember her? – mentioned it a little later on. “The Prime Minister says he is a compassionate Conservative leading a One Nation Government, so how does he feel when a former leader of his party and a member of his Cabinet for six years says this simply is not true?” She asked. Mr Cameron squirmed. As well he might. A wide-open goal that somebody had finally had the temerity to tap in.

One chap who wasn’t there to squirm was George Osborne. The Speaker had granted an Urgent Question to John McDonnell, who wanted to know why the single largest deficit-reduction measure in the Budget had been scrapped within two days of it. The Chancellor did what he likes to do in such situations and “uncork the Gauke” – David Gauke, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who obfuscated his way through in his own customary fashion.

What followed, by the way, was a taste of parliamentary future. Stephen Crabb, the new Work and Pensions Secretary, is fancied by many as a future Conservative leader. It was he who announced that the five-day-old policy had definitely been scrapped. “Personal independence payments are designed to focus support on those with the greatest need, and we’ve seen it working,” he said, the opening lines of an impassioned defence of a profoundly important policy that had been binned by his Chancellor only last week.

Owen Smith, his opposite number in Labour, and a fellow Welshman, is also fancied as a future leader of his party. “Never again can he or this Government claim that we are all in this together,” he bellowed. “The member for Chingford and Woodford Green has left that claim in tatters.” It was edifying stuff. The future cannot come soon enough.