THE official Opposition in the House of Commons is not giving the British taxpayer his money’s worth – not by a long chalk.

Labour, as the second biggest party at Westminster, has a duty as the Opposition, to keep a close eye on the doings of the Government, holding it in check and challenging any excesses by the ruling party.

But none of this is happening and the taxpayer is entitled to feel disgruntled that Labour is not doing the job it is being paid it to do.

Instead, as far as Labour is concerned, the Government might just as well not exist.

For the principal opposition party is spending so much of its time bruising and battering and fighting among itself, that it has no time to do its proper duty.

The taxpayer therefore has a legitimate grouse as Labour engulfs itself in another leadership contest which is taking up all its energies. If Jeremy Corbyn, the human limpet, clings on to the job - as well he might - Labour will almost certainly split up into two different factions, more interested in fighting each other than fighting the Tories.

And if Corbyn loses, then Labour will find itself led by someone called Owen Smith, a plodding politician who barely anyone had heard of outside Westminster.

In short, the prospects for Labour as a united fighting force look pretty bleak whatever happens.

Corbyn and his allies have been accused of bullying and intimidation, while the infighting becomes more bloody and intense on a daily basis.

But Labour got themselves into this mess.

They have no one else to blame. How they extricate themselves from it is anybody’s guess.

As was pointed out over the weekend, if a snap election were called now, the Tories would simply bury Labour in a heap of rubble.

Rarely before has the House of Commons been in such an utter shambles.

A GRAVE allegation has been made that aides of Jeremy Corbyn have made unauthorised entry into the Commons office of Labour back-bencher Seema Malhotra, who resigned from the shadow cabinet and is now supporting Corbyn’s rival for the leadership, Owen Smith.

The outrage has been referred to the Speaker John Bercow, who must crack down on this behaviour with an iron fist, even suspending or possibly expelling the culprits from the building altogether.

It is intolerable that in Parliament especially, people cannot trust their colleagues, even those supposedly on their own side, not to pry and spy into their personal space.

MANY people have been likening Theresa May’s “maiden voyage” in Prime Minister’s question time, to that of the style of Margaret Thatcher. I totally disagree.

Thatcher’s style was far more raucous and belligerent-sounding. May gets her message across in a far less overtly hostile way. And in the key passage with which she wiped the floor with Jeremy Corbyn, she actually lowered rather than increased her decibel count. But it was hugely damaging to the Labour leader.