Our modern British military leads the world with a uniquely passive-aggressive strike force. Yesterday, our one functioning submarine launched a nuclear missile from under water. It cleared the surface, like nuclear missiles should. Then – perhaps for mental health issues – its boosters failed, and it fell back into the sea, (“plopping” back, in the words of an observer) narrowly missing the submarine on the way down. The launch would have succeeded, a spokesman said, if it had been an actual battle rather than an exercise.

As with our defence capability, so with LOTO in PMQs. Perhaps it was an exercise rather than a battle, and perhaps the Prime Minister wasn’t actually the target but the mutual enemy of both leaders. But whatever the tactics, Commander Keir’s launch protocols took up most of his allotted questions. On and on they went.

Bearing in mind that Navalny has been murdered, Gaza is being flattened and Putin is offering a killing spree, Keir set about his military strike on the Tories.

“Would the Prime Minister be prepared personally to repeat the allegation made by his Business Secretary that the former chair of the Post Office is lying when he said he was told to ‘go slow’ on compensation for postmasters, and limp into the next election?”

The Prime Minister’s expert response may be summarised as No.

“I’m not sure that takes us very much forward,” LOTO said, carefully and indeed accurately. But he stuck to procedure. “Let me press on.”

He was as good as his word. The countdown continued. “On Monday, the Business Secretary also confirmed, categorically, that…” and here followed a sentence long enough to have lost the beginning by the end, but we were only part way through, for, that was followed by an account of a note from the Post Office chair that in an inordinate second part of the question “appears to directly contradict” the first part of the question. “I appreciate the Business secretary has put the Prime Minister in a tricky position, but …”

The missile should now have been lifting off its launch pad, but it was audibly struggling. What could be wrong? Had they forgotten to pump up its battery overnight? Had they forgotten to untie it from its moorings? Had its transistor wires fallen out of their chewing gum connectors?

“This week we also learned that a 2016 investigation into whether Post Office branch accounts had been altered was suddenly stopped before it was completed. Had that investigation revealed that they could have been altered, which we now know to the case, the lives of those wrongly prosecuted could have been saved. What did Government ministers know about it at the time?”

The missile wasn’t going anywhere. What Ministers knew a decade ago can barely be extracted in a two-year Inquiry costing £100 million, let alone in the smoke and noise of PMQs.

But, again, maybe Kemi was the real target all along.

Labour Members rose to boost their leader’s attempt. Lucy Powell asked for minutes of a Badenoch meeting to clarify the facts. Liam Byrne reckoned the Canadian trade deal was a mental disorder of the Business Secretary. Ben Bradshaw claimed an FoI had revealed an untruth of hers in the matter of consultations with the great gay world.

Of course, they may be thinking Kemi is going to succeed Rishi after the election. One school of MPs believe she has as much chance as Abdul Ezedi to be Tory leader, and he’s in no position for active campaigning.

Such is the state of British war readiness. A military armed with broomsticks and “looking like the country” (obese alcoholics with a GCSE in Tik-Tok) and led by governments to match.

PS: Please forgive your sketch writer’s hope and silent prayer for Rochdale to return George Galloway to the House of Commons. Clearly, it is important not to listen to Mr Galloway as he is so powerful a speaker you might end up believing what he believes. But if he returns, the House of Commons will be a better place. Witnessing Mr Galloway being expelled from the Chamber is a memory to treasure forever.

Two occasions to comfort one in the days of hospice care: On being criticised by a Standards committee Mr Galloway denounced them, saying it was “like being accused of slouching by the Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

And, on the position of Tony Blair’s Britain in regard to George Bush – it was like “Monica Lewinsky in front of Bill Clinton. Disreputable. Dishonourable. And always on its knees!”