Insults fly as Cameron and Corbyn clash in Commons

Wednesday's Prime Minister's Questions was among the most extraordinary and brutal such sessions the House of Commons has witnessed in recent years. David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn spewed accusations linked to anti-Semitism and Islamophobia across the despatch box, each of them reading from prepared scripts of smears and insults.

The exchange reached its curdled nadir after Corbyn condemned the Conservative campaign linking Sadiq Khan, Labour's candidate in London's mayoral election on Thursday, to extremism. Labour believes that Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith is using the smears against Khan, who is a Muslim, to tap into the prejudices of some middle class voters.

Cameron responded with a recital of the odious views of Sulaiman Ghani, a south London imam with whom Khan shared a platform.

“He described women as ‘subservient’ to men. He said that homosexuality was an ‘unnatural’ act,” said the leader of the party which introduced Section 28, banning local councils from “intentionally promoting homosexuality”, and most of whose MPs voted against marriage equality in 2013.  When Corbyn came back, he pointed out that Ghani supported the Conservatives at the last election.

London's is one of four city mayors to be elected on Thursday, the first time every part of the United Kingdom will vote together outside a general election since the 1960s. Scotland will elect its parliament and Wales and Northern Ireland their devolved assemblies; 2,743 seats in 124 English councils will be contested; 40 police areas in England and Wales choose police and crime commissioners; and there are two Westminster by-elections.

The Scottish National Party (SNP) and its leader, first minister Nicola Sturgeon, occupy such a commanding position in Scottish politics that a renewed overall majority at Holyrood is a foregone conclusion. The main interest when the Scottish results come in at about 3am on Friday will be in whether Labour, once the country's dominant party, will be pushed into third place by the Conservatives under their popular, energetic leader Ruth Davidson.

Labour remains the biggest party in Wales, where it has governed alone since 2011. The party expects to lose votes this time, although the Welsh electoral system, which is less proportional than Scotland's, could keep seat losses relatively low. The United Kingdom Independence Party (Ukip) has won support among the "left behind" and economically disappointed victims of industrial decline in Wales and hope to pick up their first seats in the assembly. Labour is likely to remain the biggest party but may need a coalition partner to remain in government.

Labour performed especially well in the last equivalent round of English council elections in 2012, winning the national equivalent of 39 per cent of the vote, to the Conservatives’ 33 per cent. At last year’s general election, the Conservatives won 36 per cent of the vote, while Labour’s share plunged to 32 per cent.

Pollsters and academic experts predict that Labour will lose between 150 and 200 council seats on Thursday, a result Corbyn’s critics will present as a disaster for the party. They point out that opposition parties almost always pick up local council seats after losing a general election. The Labour leader has not made his own spin doctors’ job any easier by predicting this week that the party would not lose any seats at all.

Despite his prediction, Corbyn's position will be largely unaffected by the loss of up to 200 English council seats, losses in the Welsh assembly and even a third place finish in Scotland. The big prize for Labour is London and the return of the mayor's office held since 2008 by Boris Johnson.

Despite the ugliness of the Conservative campaign, the latest poll puts Khan 14 points ahead, a lead that would require a catastrophic polling error to overturn. Labour fears, however, that the controversy over anti-Semitism in the Labour party, along with anti-Muslim smears against Khan, could motivate Conservative voters in the outer suburbs to turn out. It was these suburban voters who swung the election for Johnson last time and the Labour candidate will need to mobilise younger voters and those from ethnic minorities to ensure his victory.