Bercow extending PMQs was the act of a hellbent goblin

HERE behind the Westminster ramparts, Speaker Bercow let PMQs dribble 20 minutes over time. This is when Bercow’s cruelty becomes most apparent. To extend such a dull event is the act of a hellbent goblin.

The Commons ached to be free. Backbenches showed swathes of green leather where less dutiful Hon Members had skedaddled for some nosebag.

Still the Speaker refused to call halt. In front of me a small moth took the route of desperation and aimed straight for a metal strut. The closer it got to its target, I swear it accelerated. Clunk. Ouch! Yet the moth failed to knock itself senseless. Poor creature, it could still hear Dame Caroline Spelman (Con, Meriden) warbling about a visit to London by a choir of German politicians. And so the little creature did a small circuit and again flew at that strut, repeating its head-on collision. After that I saw my moth no more.

By recent measures, yesterday’s PMQs was actually one of the better ones, at least in its main exchanges. Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn had their weekly grapple, Mrs May taking the bout with ease.

Mr Corbyn tried to establish the slogan ‘a broken-promise Budget’ but made the mistake of mentioning Budget tax cuts that have split the Labour Party like a pair of Oliver Hardy’s trousers.

Mrs May capitalised on those Labour disagreements. Mr Corbyn should make up his mind and support the Budget, averred Mrs May. Big Tory hurrahs. Mr Corbyn narrowed his eyes. It was the look of a man accepting a suppository.

In the next exchange Mrs May had her loyalists chanting ‘up! up! up!’ in response to a list of things she said the Government had achieved (support for public services, growth, wages). Much mooing from Tories. Labour MPs looked a bit ‘uh-oh’.

But that was the best of it. Much of the rest was stodgy fare, not least because Mrs May was so stuttery, her delivery jagged and indecisive. At such moments she could be Barbara Edwards, who did BBC TV weather forecasts in the 1970s. Do you remember Barbara? Neat, correct vowels, decent sort, but prone to frightful midsentence gulps.

In a week which has seen the election of a sharply Right-wing president in Brazil and the crumbling of Germany’s Chancellor, you might have expected Tom Tugendhat (Con) to raise foreign policy. After all, he chairs the select committee on foreign affairs.

Instead he talked about, er, home-spun poppies. This led us into an excruciating minute when Mrs May chewed over the different types of Remembrance poppy one can wear.

Amber Rudd (Con, anti-Brexit) jawed about a sauce-manufacturer in her constituency. Peter Bone (Con, pro-Brexit) had a question of such strained prolixity, it had onlookers shrugging to one another in bafflement. Chuka Umunna (Lab, Streatham) wanted money for black cultural archives.

VICTORIA Prentis (Con, Banbury) publicised a charity concert she is helping to organise. Cornishman Steve Double (Con) talked of space exploration.

Mark Francois (Con, Rayleigh & Wickford) caused a flicker of panic on the Government bench by again demanding that Whitehall stop persecuting Army veterans with investigations about longdistant service in Northern Ireland. Mr Francois urged Mrs May to ‘defend those who defended us’ and bawled at her, directly, ‘ are you with us?’

Mrs May, startled, stalled through some civil service bluster. Her appalling ineloquence and her reliance on officialdom’s blamedodging advice spoke volumes.

The treatment of those Army veterans is widely opposed yet senior civil servants persist with it. Across the land, black-metal silhouette figures are being erected to remind us of the gallant dead. What about gallant survivors?

The final question, from doughty Philip Davies ( Con, Shipley), offered more of the same. Why was spending on overseas aid rising faster than spending on ‘ hardpressed schools and police and fire services’? Most people, said Mr Davies, thought ‘this warped priority crazy crackers’.

Indeed so. But our political elite snootily regards the electorate as ‘crazy crackers’, and eminently easy to ignore.