PMQs – Itch-A-Sketch 16

So, after another of those rather too frequently occurring breaks, we’re back to the weekly sparring between Young Dave and all comers, most notably Mil The Younger. So what might be on the agenda today? Miliband may be spoiled for choice: EU problems, Passport issuing problems ... but then, there is that little local difficulty between two of his own ministers.

Remember when the Tories made hay about Pa Broon rattling off statistics? In those days, it was Tractor Statistics, like the Soviet Union, with those back-bench lackeys queuing up to grovel to The Great Man.

Ah, but that was then, and this is now: TWO MILLION PRIVATE SECTOR JOBS! LONG TERM ECONOMIC PLAN! JOBS FAIRS! THE BEST ROUTE OUT OF POVERTY IS INTO WORK! Ah, all those slogans, all those grovelling back bench interventions, it looks so similar.

Yes, because it is all too similar, and you know who you are, Graham Evans, Chris Skidmore, Jason McCartney, Andrew Jones, and Mike Freer. But remember Freer, we’ll be back to him in a moment.

Meanwhile, it was business as usual, as Miliband first picked up on the fragmented state of who looks after schools following the Birmingham inspections fiasco, which found no plot, yet set the press off, and with no apparent desire from too many on both sides of the House to get them to cool it.

Dave went a little redder. There would be no-notice inspections from Ofsted. Well, big deal, Prime Minister, that would be the same Ofsted whose credibility has just been traduced on the altar of keeping Michael “Oiky” Gove in post. He doesn’t say how Gove’s department looks after more than 20,000 schools.

This is because they can’t. Then Miliband switches to passport applications, which Cameron blames on, er, more applications. The questions keep coming. Dave keeps finding ways of not answering them. And then he can take refuge in the warm glow provided by all those softball punts from his own side.

Wasn’t there any relief from the tedium? Well, apart from Speaker Bercow bollocking one Labour MP with a Kennington Tandoori reference, there were Speedos. And Dave had been pushing them in China. I say, is this relevant? Yes, that’s where Mike Freer comes back in – they’re made in his constituency.

And nobody need have nightmares about them, because they make shorts as well as, er, Speedos. Clear? About as much as the rest of PMQs. Oh, and new boy Robert Jenrick turned up at the end to get sworn in. Welcome to the machine.