Raab and Rayner hold an edgy flirtathon while their bosses are away

With the PM still in Madrid, participating (if the photos are anything to go by) in the world’s worst stag do masquerading as a Nato meeting, yesterday’s PMQS was a battle of the deputies. Wind being out of the country, fire and water got to have a go. Step forward Angela Rayner and Dominic Raab.

Politicians are an odd bunch. A few minutes before the session, Rayner had tweeted a photo of her stiletto heels – emblazoned with Kung Fu Panda decorations – in a banterous jab at Raab’s karate black belt.

But Rayner’s tweet rather set the tone for what followed – a fun tussle, light years away from the moribund dynamic of a normal PMQS. Keir versus Boris can sometimes feel like watching a slow-paced undertaker trying and failing to pin down Ronald Mcdonald in a game of tag. This was more like a frisson at a work party; plenty of smirking, light ribbing and side-eyed glances.

Eventually the sexual tension got the better of the Deputy Prime Minister. He attempted a roguish wink at Rayner, though not being one of nature’s rogues, Raab’s angling wasn’t quite clear.

“It’s no wonder that the Prime Minister has fled the country,” began Rayner, grinning hungrily across the Dispatch Box, “and left the Honourable Member to carry the can”. The Labour faithful hooted, louder than they normally do for the undertaker. Yet both sides seemed remarkably upbeat.

With a sassy sideways lean against the Dispatch Box, Rayner delivered a series of ever-louder broadsides – from air horn to foghorn to sonic boom.

“Call a general election and see where the people are,” she bellowed. Next to her, Rachel Reeves laughed the nervous titter of the sensible one in the group on a night out while her rowdy friend is playing up to the bouncer.

Raab had gone for his trademark slightly-too-shiny blue suit, like something the work experience guy would wear. With an unctuous air, he teased the opposition by citing Tony Blair “who’s actually got some experience winning elections”.

“There’s a smile coming over her face, all the while she’s revelling in it,” smarmed Raab. And so she was, pouting like a movie villainess. The dynamic between the pair had become almost flirty. Peter Bone, bobbing up and down to get the Speaker’s attention, looked momentarily like an elderly Latin master who’d been roped in to supervise the slow-song slot at the school disco.

In an effort to seem a man of the people, Raab pretended not to know what Glyndebourne was.

While Rayner’s colleagues were out on RMT picket lines, he crowed, she was quaffing champagne “at the Glyndebourne music festival”, which made it sound like the sort of place you’d do lines of ketamine in the Portaloos between acts of Così Fan Tutte. “Champagne socialism is back in the Labour Party!”

No doubt the perma-aggrieved will call it snobbery, but in the Commons everyone chuckled away, privately dreading next week’s return to normal.