Labour’s Laura Pidcock sparked an outcry last year when she declared that she did not intend to "hang out" with Tory women.

In response, Tory MP Conor Burns called Pidcock "narrow minded" while Nadine Dorries accused the 30-year-old MP of having a "hands-over-the-ears juvenile attitude". But Pidcock refused to back down. She insisted that she is "perfectly civil" and "nice" to Conservative MPs, even if she doesn’t want to ever socialise with them.

Could she have done better? Jeremy Corbyn presumably thinks so, having taken a rather different approach to explaining how he gets on with Tory MPs.

Asked by The Guardian whether he was friends with any Tories, Corbyn did not quite admit to any cheery cross-party camaraderie. But neither did he go to Pidcock-esque lengths to distance himself from the other side.

"I have a civilised relationship with a number of Tories – I discuss issues with them. Listen, David Davis and I worked very closely to try to get Shaker Aamer back into this country," he said, referring top- the effort to get a British resident freed from Guantánamo Bay," he said.

"Indeed we went to Washington together – Andrew Mitchell, David Davis, Andy Slaughter and me – and we succeeded."

Pushed on David Davis, the Labour leader almost managed to pay the Brexit secretary something approaching a compliment. But not quite.

He said: "The Brexit secretary is a complex character because he and I have worked together on issues of justice."

Picture by: Jonathan Brady/PA Archive/PA Images