It only took one of the most disastrous weeks for a Prime Minister in modern British political history to spur Jeremy Corbyn into a barely half-competent PMQs performance. If Jez can install a hard-leftist as May’s ENT specialist, block book the nation’s comic hecklers, get a Momentum plant in a Velcro factory and arrange for Tory conference to be held weekly he’ll be really flying.

Until then pundits are at risk of overstating Jezza’s new-found ‘proficiency’, which entirely consisted in just about managing to ask all of questions on the same half-tricky topic in the right order. Farcically, he still can’t go on Brexit…

Jez’s team knows he looks like that elderly weirdo round the corner who lives in a bedsit surrounded by hundreds of old telephone directories. So why not use this fustiness to his strength? It was with a hint of the anorak that Jez delivered his zinger about the DWP premium rate universal credit helpline. May was stuck. Would Philip Hammond get up and pull 55p out of his pocket? No such luck this week – and no answer from May.

In an arsenal that now contains only Benylin and hugs there is no space for aggression or hard detail. Corbyn, God bless him, immediately messed-up by failing to hammer the point home in his next salvo. He’s still the best she’s got…

Responding to a vacuous Labour question on Brexit, May appeared to throw her papers angrily at the dispatch box: much-needed confirmation that a hint of passion – even life – remains in the old girl.

Only Theresa Mary May could ruin the effect by instantly muttering “whoops”, denuding the action of any effect. At least all the Strepsils stitched into her sleeve didn’t skittle all over the table of the House..

At one point the show came to a halt as Bercow let out a stunningly loud yell: quite startling for such a little man. Had he just spotted his wife in the public galleries? There was time for the PM to squeeze in a scripted broadside, a fairly effective run-down of Corbyn’s worst Zionist-hating conference moments.

Corbyn’s crowning PMQs – a once in a lifetime chance to eviscerate the Tory leader – fizzled into nothingness as he weakly and meekly murmured: “if the Prime Minister can’t lead maybe she should leave”. If ever Corbyn’s utter uselessness as a parliamentarian was exposed, it was in delivering that line without conviction…

The usual crop of reliable backbenchers rallied round to give May a boost at the end. She will have gone home to her red box full of medicine more than happy. She might cough from time to time, but Jez confirmed beyond all doubt he doesn’t have a voice at all…