Thornbug looked like a Prisoner Cell Block H extra

What a delightful model of political ambition Jeremy hunt makes. Intelligent, articulate, able. at 52, and still with a few of his best years left in the tank, our Foreign Secretary is also unfailingly well-briefed.

at Foreign Office questions yesterday, debate flitted between Sri Lanka, Libya and the Middle East.

For a while, we stopped off in the Indian Ocean to check on the Chagos Islands. Each query the Secretary of State answered with that mildly grating self-assurance of the class swot.

hunt, who was head boy at Charterhouse public school, doesn’t do blast or bluster at the despatch box. he radiates a strange inner calm.

Perhaps it’s all that salsa dancing he and his wife get up to at home.

he certainly doesn’t get flustered by his Labour opponent, Emily thornberry, a flinty, malevolent presence who scowls like an extra from Prisoner Cell Block h.

throughout yesterday’s session, thornbug sat chattering and laughing with her front bench colleagues, every now and again emitting a sarcastic ‘ ha!’ at the Government’s responses. hunt stoically ignored her. If there is a drawback to the tory Jezza’s prime ministerial hopes it is that he lacks passion.

Often his delivery resembles that of a middle management type delivering a PowerPoint presentation. Nor is there much evidence of humour. any charm lurking beneath that cyborg-like exterior remains distinctly vanilla.

his Mansion house speech on Monday, in which he called for a vast increase in defence spending, was about as naked a pitch to be Prime Minister as you are likely to

witness. and yet not one person in the Commons tackled him on that brazen job application. What a pity. Self- deprecation is a key component to any aspiring leader’s political armoury. It would have been interesting to learn if hunt possesses it.

Instead, members bowled him the usual trundlers – arms sales to Saudi arabia; Gibraltar’s sovereignty; Syria.

they were all deflected with a deft Carthusian bat.

the meatiest exchanges were over President trump’s state visit to the UK, coinciding with the D-Day celebrations.

Daniel Zeichner ( Lab, Cambridge) demanded the visit be cancelled, or at least postponed ‘preferably long after the President is slung out’. hunt accused the opposition of ‘ ridiculous anti-americanism’.

thornbug puffed out her cheeks theatrically.

hunt pointed out that more than 400,000 american troops were killed in the Second World War. One million British jobs also rely on american investment.

the Special Relationship, he noted, went rather beyond just partisan politics.

DRIPPY Jo Swinson (Lib Dem, East Dunbartonshire) suggested the Foreign Office should arrange for trump to attend some training courses on bullying and

harassment during his visit. Ms Swinson was brushed aside by Sir hugo Swire (Con, East Devon) who suggested this antagonising of our closest ally was ‘extremely embarrassing’.

helen Goodman (Lab, Bishop auckland) criticised the Foreign Office for its lavish overseas properties, including a £12million penthouse in New York. hunt replied, saying it was vital Britain has foreign residences capable of entertaining foreign dignitaries.

I noticed that thornbug didn’t demur. Doubtless she’s looking forward to making full use of them if she and the rest of the Labour Kommandants seize power.

hunt’s colleague Mark Field was asked several questions on how much the FCO was doing to promote Britain’s ‘ soft power’ overseas.

Quite a lot if the junior minister’s year-round sun tan is anything to go by. Raffish chap, Field. Sort of fellow who wears a silken cravat at the weekend.

at the end of the session, Marcus Fysh (Con, Yeovil) inquired whether FCO officials involved in Brexit negotiations had sought Belgian citizenship and whether this would be deemed appropriate.

this was a mischievous reference to weaselly EU official Guy Verhofstadt’s recent claim that the Prime Minister’s chief Brexit negotiator, Olly Robbins, had asked him if he could help secure him a Belgian passport.

hunt said he was ‘as intrigued by those media reports as my honourable friend’.

I think that’s what is known as throwing one of your civil servants under a bus.