I did not expect much from Dianne Abbott the Shadow Home Secretary when she sat in for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, but what I didn’t expect was such a dire and pisspoor performance from her that we were all treated to.

Watching Ms Abbott at the Despatch Box was like watching a particularly inept student debater who suddenly realises that they are out of their depth, because they cannot bring out facts to back up their position and resorts to emotive rhetoric instead. Dianne Abbott led her questions with the usual race hustling that she has become notorious for. There was stuff about ‘Black History Month’ and praise for a Black British athlete who had done well in Doha. She then moved on to the issue of ‘whammen’ and whinged on about female unemployment and welfare. There was little of any real substance in Ms Abbott’s performance and to be quite frank she squandered her time in this particular type of limelight. There was little about the current challenges that the country faces with regards to Brexit and a lot about how female MP’s were getting some vitriolic abuse from members of the public.

For me though the biggest humiliation for Ms Abbott was when she failed to properly take note of how many questions she had answered. She really did give the impression that she had failed to prove that she could count up to six. The Speaker John Bercow had to tell Dianne Abbott to cease questioning as she had used up her six questions. The look of momentary confusion that I saw cross her face was for me priceless.

Dominic Raab standing in for the Prime Minister Boris Johnson made mincemeat of Dianne Abbott. I got the distinct impression that none of Abbott’s blows landed on the government at all. Mr Raab easily batted away any hostile question from Ms Abbott or neutralised them by picking up bits of the question with which there was no disagreement.

To choose Dianne Abbott to fulfil the role of sitting in for Corbyn was an act of complete stupidity. Even dyed in the wool Marxist John McDonnell could have done a better job than Abbott. If nothing else this performance by Abbott should have pushed the issue of Labour’s incompetence further and further into public view. I would not be at all surprised if Dianne Abbott’s performance at PMQ’s caused yet more people to decide that they don’t want to vote Labour as they don’t want a future controlled by people like Dianne Abbott. Her performance to day was both laughable and cringeworthy, very much like the party that she is a member of.