Panjandrum turned peer Bob Kerslake has never voted with the government since he joined the Lords a year ago. Even on votes where the majority of crossbench peers back the Tories, ‘independent’ Kerslake has always voted against. His tedious lefty interventions have seen him dubbed ‘Comrade Bob’ by ermine-clad colleagues.

This afternoon Kerslake has been trying to nobble the attempt to abolish trade union check-off, the outdated system where union subs are automatically taken from civil servants’ pay packets, instead of making them opt in to pay. Comrade Bob not only wants this covert union funding to stay, he wants to expand it to “Any employee whose employer deducts income tax”. A bizarre intervention which would end up costing businesses tens of millions of pounds a year…