LABOUR MPs applauded party leader Jeremy Corbyn on Monday night when he announced a huge influx of 28,000 new members in just two days since his election.

He updated the figure to 30,000 in his speech to the TUC Congress yesterday, meaning 2,000 more people had joined Labour overnight.

At Monday night’s meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party, Mr Corbyn also revealed that 33,000 party members had responded to his request for topics to be put to David Cameron at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions in the Commons.

He received a sympathetic response from most backbench MPs at the meeting, despite tough questioning by Blairites.

The Labour leader faced probing from MPs about his attitude to Trident nuclear weapons, Nato and the EU.

He said he was delighted that many new members were young people who would make a huge contribution to politics.
“We need their energy, ideas and conviction,” Mr Corbyn declared.

He told MPs his priorities would include striving to end the “dreadful” housing crisis, winning back support in Scotland and Wales and achieving a Labour government in 2020.

New deputy leader Tom Watson and Mr Corbyn have both pledged to spend at least one day a month campaigning in Scotland.

Arch-Blairite Lord Mandelson was unusually restrained as he as he slunk down the corridor and into the meeting.

Asked by clamouring reporters whether the Labour Party was doomed, he muttered: “There is nothing more to be said. We will see if it is the end.”

However, during the meeting, Lord Mandelson was given some timely advice by Paul Flynn, the campaigning MP for Newport West.

“Extinct volcanoes should keep quiet,” said Mr Flynn.