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Theresa May took a leaf out of David Cameron's book today as she mercilessly mocked Jeremy Corbyn - in response to a serious question about housing.

The Tory leader tore into her Labour rival at Prime Minister's Questions as she vowed never to let the party "anywhere near power again".

And she cruelly turned his favourite PMQs tactic on its head - by reading out an insult to Mr Corbyn from a member of the public on Twitter.

In their first head-to-head clash for 50 days, Mr Corbyn focused all six of his questions on the Tories' attacks on affordable housing.

He blasted the previous administration for saying "every penny" spent on social housing was money that couldn't be spent on housing for the rich.

And he claimed the pledge to replace homes sold under Right to Buy one-for-one was in tatters - with just one for every five sold off.

(Image: BBC)

Mrs May replied: "In relation to the figures on council houses, he's wrong. We have delivered on the one for one replacement on the Right to Buy."

Mrs May failed to back up her claim with any evidence.

Figures by her own government in March showed 49,573 homes had been sold off since 2012 but just 4,594 new ones had been started or bought on site.

The Prime Minister then mocked Mr Corbyn for his long-held tactic of asking Twitter followers for questions - so she read out one from 'Lewis'.

(Image: BBC)

"I thought I would look to see what sort of responses he'd received", she smirked.

"The first one was quite good. In fact he might want to make sure he stays sitting down for this.

"Lewis writes: 'Does she know in a recent poll on who would make a better Prime Minister, 'don't know' scored higher than Jeremy Corbyn ?'".

She added: "What we do know is that whoever wins the Labour Party leadership, we're not going to let them anywhere near power again."

(Image: BBC)

Minutes later she tried to duck scrutiny again - by claiming the 'Traingate' row was a metaphor for the Labour Party .

Mr Corbyn said the number of first time buyers had halved over 20 years, and their average age has increased.

“There is a housing crisis in Britain," he said.

(Image: BBC)

He went on to note “devastating” figures released over the summer showing £9.3bn is being paid in housing benefit directly to landlords - many of them unscrupulous or shoddy.

But Mrs May claimed Mr Corbyn was trying to undermine subsidised rent which itself helped people get their own homes.

And referring to Traingate she said: "The train's left the station, the seats are all empty, the leader's on the floor - even on rolling stock they're a laughing stock."

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