Tory MP sketches Jeremy Corbyn at Prime Minister’s questions

“He has a good team working for him“. “He is very determined that this will be a serious opportunity to put serious questions to the Prime Minister to which people want real answers”, she said.

All eyes will be on 66-year-old Corbyn, who came in for a barrage of criticism in the British press on Wednesday for not singing the national anthem “God Save the Queen” during a memorial service.

The town’s MPs issued pleas for the party to unite behind Mr Corbyn, MP for Islington North, who was elected leader on Saturday (September 12) after winning almost 59.5 per cent of first-preference votes.

But at 12.03pm Corbyn rose to his feet and told the House many people he had met across the country during his leadership campaign had told him they believed Parliament was out of touch, and that the “theatrical” PMQs was part of that.

Mr Corbyn has been heavily criticised – including by members of his own front bench – after remaining silent while David Cameron and others sang the anthem during a Battle of Britain commemoration at St Paul’s Cathedral.

New Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has said he wants to restore the founding values of trade unions to the party. “Those are the values that have shaped me and my political life”, he will say.

Having sported the open-neck-and-vest-on-show look during the leadership campaign, Mr Corbyn went all conventional and donned a tie for his first appearance in the Commons chamber as leader.

He challenged Cameron on the need for more affordable housing, less “extortionate” rent for tenants, and better mental health care in his first questions to the prime minister, whose Conservative Party won a convincing victory in a national election earlier this year.

Mr Corbyn turned to his supporters, waved and applauded them before walking into the centre ahead of his speech, without making any comment to the media.

In response, Mr Cameron said: “I have a simple view, which is the terrorism we faced was wrong, it was unjustifiable, the death and the killing was wrong”.

Julian Ware-Lane, deputy leader of the Labour group on Southend Council, said: “We have suffered two bad losses in successive general elections, something I have personal experience of as a candidate on both occasions”.

Ms Eagle added: “What we have got to recognise is that politics is dynamic and there is a lot of change going on in Europe at the moment”.