Och! A Scots Nat looked as if he wanted to chin the PM

... on a tension-filled and eerie day at Westminster

ASTRANgE lull has suddenly descended upon Westminster. Dark. Eerie. Like the unsettling hushed moments before the heavy squall hits.

Just five days to go, tick, tock, tick, tock, before the House votes on the Prime Minister’s deal to leave the European Union – and the tension among our ruling class is now palpable.

Even the cretin who screams ‘Stop Brexxxxxit’ outside my window at teatime has momentarily gone mute. As such, PMQs yesterday was largely an EU-free zone. Quel relief. Jeremy Corbyn chose to concentrate on the recent knifings, namely chief copper Cressida Dick’s whine about a shortage in police numbers. Strange; whenever I hear the Met top brass moaning about being short- staffed, my mind drifts to the 20 rozzers dispatched to raid blameless war hero Lord Bramall’s home on trumped-up sex offender charges.

Mr Corbyn said the epidemic of knife killings was all down to government cuts. There are insufficient bobbies everywhere, he claimed. To prove his point, he had even a letter (zzzzzz) from ‘Mike in gosport’ saying he doesn’t feel safe any more. Mrs May pointed out that police budgets had gone up this year and will go up even further next.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid spent these exchanges shifting uneasily in his seat. I don’t blame him. Knife crime is a serious issue, but there was something very unseemly watching our masters going tit-for-tat, trading politics on the issue.

Further down the frontbench, Health Secretary Matt Hancock and a dolled-up Amber Rudd simpered at each other coquettishly. Nor was there much enthusiasm on Labour’s backbench. EX-GMTV cutie gloria De Piero (Ashfield) sat alongside Commons Igor Stephen Timms (East Ham) looking glum. Wondering why on earth she quit television for all this, possibly. Cannibal-toothed Angela Knight bobbed up and down sucking wind through her chops.

But alas! We weren’t quite Brexitless. Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) announced it was her daughter’s 16th birthday on March 29. An ideal present for her, she said, would be for the PM to delay our departure from the EU until investigations into the Vote Leave campaigns were made public. What an odd gift. Wouldn’t the little dear just prefer shoes? Plod, plod, plod it went. Then a lengthy explosion from the SNP nook following a delicious putdown from the Prime Minister.

Kirsty Blackman ( Aberdeen North) had argued that Mrs May had no mandate for either her Brexit deal or a No Deal arrangement north of the border. So what, said Mrs May. The SNP has no mandate for pursuing independence, yet they still seek it. Kaboom!

Och, those Scots Nats were cross. Wee Kirsty’s face turned redder than a lollipop. Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) looked set to rush over to the PM and chin her.

Opposite this Caledonian melee, meanwhile, smirking Jacob ReesMogg ( North East Somerset), an elegant entanglement of pinstriped limbs, squeezed his pincenez with a rococo flourish.

The Speaker struggled to regain order. Is his authority fading? When he repeatedly rebuked deputy chief whip Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) for conversing with a colleague, Pincher carried on chatting regardless. On and on Bercow allowed PMQs to drag. The PM was still answering questions close to one o’clock. This was getting tantalisingly near the record.

There was further elongation following a point of order from the SNP’s Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) over the PM’s earlier comments regarding Scottish independence. Mrs May treated the matter with the usual courtesy she affords the SNP’s leader’s interventions. That is to say she span on her kitten heel and nonchalantly slinked from the chamber just as Blackers started to speak. Next up: A vote. Tick, tock, tick, tock…