David Cameron's 5 worst moments in PMQs

It takes a certain amount of chutzpah, at your first stint asking the questions at PMQs, at 38 years of age, to tell a Prime Minister who’s won three elections that, ‘He was the future once,’ as David Cameron did in December 2005.

But if the last few weeks have proved anything, chutzpah is one thing Britain’s soon to be ex-Prime Minister is not short on. Risking the prosperity of the nation to solve an internal row that couldn’t in any event be solved, and to then lose, certainly takes flair.

In nine and a half years on one side of the despatch box or the other come Wednesday lunch times, the occasions on which Cameron has allowed his self-confidence to overtake his judgement have been regular. And the results have been as cringeworthy as you might imagine.

April 2011 - Doing an impression of Michael Winner is always a high risk strategy, and telling Angela Eagle to ‘calm down dear’, still haunts him five years on. Months later he was forced to apologise for the quite openly sexist remark.

December 2014 - Shooting oneself in the foot in the act of failing to say the word sadomasochism is no small achievement. It was a preplanned dig at Ed Balls: “The shadow chancellor said he would be tough on the deficit and tough on the causes of the deficit. He is one of the causes of the deficit.

I think we’ve all found one of the first ever examples of political masosadism.”

Much of the news media spent much of the day trying to work out what masosadism means. A year or so later, Cameron simply admitted he meant to say sadomasochism. Next time the opportunity arose, he kept it simple and just called Balls a ‘blithering idiot.’

January 2016 - In the heat of the moment, true colours intensify. “They [Corbyn and McDonnell] met with a bunch of migrants in Calais and told them they could all come to Britain!” he boomed. MPs from every other party lined up to condemn his words, as did various refugee groups. What Corbyn and McDonnell had done was seek to arrange for refugee children without parents to join up with family members already living in the UK. It was also Holocaust Memorial Day. Arguably not the day to demonise refugee children.

February 2016 - It was two weeks since David Cameron’s own mother had signed a petition against Conservative cuts. Corbyn, of course, ‘doesnt do personal attacks’, so hadn’t mentioned it all. A full week had transpired without Cameron being able to use his preplanned mum material, but when a backbencher shouted out ‘What would your mum say?’ He couldn’t help himself. ‘What would my mum say? She’d say put on a proper suit, do up your tie and sing the national anthem!’ Corbyn was furious, and mounted a strong defence. ‘My late mum would say stand up for what you believe in. Stand up for an NHS free at the point of delivery!’ History should recall that it was never Corbyn himself that brought it up, though arguably he should have done. But the attack was entirely undeserved.

June 2016 - At the end of exchanges between Cameron and Corbyn conducted in deafening silence, one defeated leader versus one who, though he battles on, is finished the moment he sets foot in parliament, Cameron despatched some brutal honesty. “It might be in my party’s interest for him to remain, but it is not in the national interest. For heaven’s sake man, Go!”

Of course, it could be that Cameron was wise enough to realise that telling Corbyn to go only makes him more steadfast, and in fact helps the Tories by keeping him in place. On the other hand, he might have just been telling the truth.