PMQs – Itch-A-Sketch 13

Back come our hardworking Parliamentarians following their Easter break, for the next ritual bout of less than gentlemanly mud-slinging that is Prime Minister’s Questions. So what might Mil The Younger be asking Young Dave today? Might the behaviour of a party not represented at Wesminster get a mention? And what about the value we place on the teaching profession? All will be revealed.

Tributes were heard to the helicopter crew killed in Afghanistan, and the murdered schoolteacher Ann Maguire, and then what?

Royal Mail again, that’s what. Sold on the cheap! Hedge funds making a killing! The taxpayer was a whole billion short! Staff can’t sell their shares – why can the favoured investors?

Dave waffled and countered. See your Royal Mail and raise you Pa Broon’s gold sale! And Michael Foot! And Kinnock! It was making a loss (no it wasn’t – Ed)! The other lot always oppose these sales!

Strewth, this was all getting a bit tedious maximus. Oh hang on, there’s the ritual barracking. Mr Speaker is going to let this go into added time as a result. And some of the noise is coming from the Labour benches. Order! Order! Ms Mactaggart! You are an illustrious product of the Cheltenham Ladies’ College! [laughter]

Well, thank goodness for some light relief from the tedium. Miliband held steady, Cameron did not waver. There was precious little else, though: even Jason McCartney could not tempt Dave into a dig by revealing that a business in his constituency made interior material for Bozza’s less than Very Wonderful new bus.

And then at the end, there was something really inspirational to hear: the clerk to the House, Robert Rodgers, is to retire in August. He has served for 42 years. There was an unparliamentary but highly appropriate round of spontaneous applause.

So a nice warm feeling to finish. But precious little of substance otherwise.