I began business of the House questions by raising the Conservative party’s blind spot when it comes to women.  First, the mayor of London said that women only go to university to find husbands.  Then the prime minister completely forgot about Wimbledon champions Ann Jones and Virginia Wade when complementing Andy Murray on his fantastic achievement last Sunday.  And finally we had William Hague describing Cathy Jamieson in a very un-diplomatic manner.  This is a Tory party so modern that they either ignore women completely or casually insult them.

I continued by raising the ongoing Tory Euro chaos.  Tory MPs may have been skipping gleefully around this place last Friday for the EU referendum bill, but after the home secretary’s u-turn on the European arrest warrant there’s another Euro mutiny brewing.  Theresa May has been promising chairs of the home affairs, justice and EU scrutiny select committees time to scrutinise her opt out plan for nine months.  Not only has the government shown no respect for these committees or for this house, but they have done it for no reason at all.  The EU treaties, the commission and even their own legislation says that they don’t need a vote before they begin negotiation, so I asked Andrew Lansley why he is forcing a vote on Monday?

I chided Andrew Lansley that while Ed Miliband is taking bold steps to remake our politics, the prime minister is failing to answer questions about his dodgy donors.  We all know that in the Conservative party money equals influence:

• Adrian Beecroft donated over half a million pounds and was then allowed to write a report calling for the destruction of workers’ rights.
• JCB chairman Anthony Bamford donated two and a half million pounds and then got to write a report on manufacturing.
• And at a recent Tory fundraising ball the prime minister had the temerity to tell his millionaire guests that their donations enabled him to give a tax cut to all their millionaire pals and to all their hedge fund friends.

Furthermore I’ve calculated that 18 hedge fund bosses donated over £24 million before attending their cosy diner at number 10.  David Cameron was forced by the scandal to ask Lord Gold to investigate, but it has been more than a year and we haven’t heard a word.  I asked the leader of the House to tell us when he expects this important report to be published and if he knew why it has taken so long to appear? No wonder a quarter of the Sunday Times Rich List are donors to the Conservative Party!

I finished by raising Nick Clegg’s dinner last week with Mick Jagger.  I hear they were discussing Lib Dem theme songs for the next election.  How about ‘You can’t always get what you want’, or ‘Under my thumb’? Personally I think that ‘It’s all over now’ might be much more appropriate.