What’s good for the goose … Hammond seals his comeback by feeding May a Christmas cracker

It was the final PMQS of the year, and the Commons was giddy with the festive spirit. “Last year,” began Clive Efford (Lab, Eltham), “the Prime Minister told the Radio Times that on Christmas Day she likes to prepare and cook her own goose.”

His colleagues guffawed. “In the spirit of Christmas,” he continued, “can I suggest that, in order to extract the maximum pleasure from the messy job of stuffing her goose, she names it either Michael or Boris?”

MPS honked and hooted. Sadly, Mr Gove was absent from the chamber. Mr Johnson, however, could be seen on the front bench, beaming gamely.

While the House chortled on, Theresa May racked her brains for comic inspiration. Providence arrived in the improbable form of Philip Hammond, who leant forward and, with some urgency, hissed into her ear: “The goose could be called Jeremy. It could be called Jeremy.”

Mrs May smiled gratefully. “Can I say,” she trumpeted, “that I’ll have to resist the temptation to call the goose Jeremy.”

And to think: little more than six months ago, Mrs May was reportedly planning to sack Mr Hammond. Now, here he was, helpfully supplying her with seasonal badinage. Christmas really does bring people together.

The mood was somewhat less jolly later in the afternoon, when the Prime Minister was questioned by Yvette Cooper at a select committee meeting.

Just like in the old days, when Mrs May was Home Secretary and Ms Cooper her opposite number, their exchanges were icy. The moment the Labour MP opened her mouth to speak, the temperature of the room plummeted 40 degrees. Icicles formed on the nose of the doorkeeper. A policeman’s teeth chattered like castanets. Sir William Cash had to be defrosted with a blowtorch.

Ms Cooper asked about various aspects of Brexit: Europol, the European Arrest Warrant, the Irish border. And, as she did so, I watched Mrs May’s face.

Normally she doesn’t wear glasses, but she had produced a pair, perched them on the tip of her nose, and was now peering disdainfully over the top of them at Ms Cooper, in the manner of a school librarian. Frostily, Ms Cooper told her that her replies were “disappointing” and “baffling”. Mrs May peered frostily back. The temperature fell a further 10 degrees. A clerk came down with gangrene.

Still, Andrew Murrison (Con, SW Wilts) squeezed one memorable answer out of Mrs May. Asked about “full alignment” in Northern Ireland, she explained patiently: “This is not the default position. It’s the default default position.”

Well, that clears that up.

‘The moment the Labour MP opened her mouth to speak, the temperature of the room plummeted 40 degrees’