“When will austerity be over for the owl catchers? When will austerity be over for the sausage sellers? When will austerity be over for the dog food tasters?” Corbyn droned monotonously through his list of people who hadn’t got anything nice from mean old Theresa in a while. The only question on anyone else’s mind was “When will PMQs be over?” Half the Labour backbenchers didn’t stick around to find out. Vince Cable didn’t even bother turning up to witness a PMQs that made his own speeches look positively Churchillian. They made the right call…

Jezza had the strange look of a hungry lion that had spent hours hunting down a prime wildebeest, only to decide that he was in the mood for gazelle instead. Whatever it was, his dream set of six undiluted questions on his favourite topic of Tory cuts simply wasn’t doing it for him today. Maybe it was the unseasonably nice weather outside. Maybe it was the shredded burlap sacks with artichoke milk he had eaten for breakfast. They always took a while to digest properly. He just couldn’t bring himself to talk about nurse numbers with any real conviction today.

Maybe he was forgetting something. Wasn’t there something going on on the foreign policy front? Had he forgotten to RSVP for the next Hezbollah branch meeting? Had he missed dinner with his old handlers at the Russian Embassy? It must have been something to do with that nasty lot in Brussels. Oh well, Keir could clean that mess up. What was he meant to be complaining about anyway? He mashed the buttons on his random Tory attack line generator: “tax giveaways for corporations and the super rich”. That’ll keep the clipping social media monkeys in HQ happy for now…

What was the point of it all? A few MPs perked up when someone asked a question about modern slavery. Jezza couldn’t really comprehend. In fact, no one in the room could really comprehend. Ken Clarke arose from his slumber to complain about the “right-wing nationalists” in his party with all the panache and poise of a washed-up salesman complaining to a weary drinking companion about former business partners who had stiffed him over the years. Would there be a majority in the House for putting little EU flags on all the salt and pepper shakers in Parliament, he pondered. By this point the only majority was for ending PMQs as quickly as possible…