Like an odd couple reunited, mud flew in the battle of the deputies

The Opposition and lobby journalists faced their usual supply and demand problem. Massive, salivating demand for another ministerial resignation without (as yet) the supply of hard evidence to bring one about.

With Dominic Raab in their sights, and Rishi Sunak away, Wednesday’s PMQS – a battle of the Deputies – had the potential for a juicy scrap.

Labour backbenchers had worn badges marking “anti-bullying week”, handed out so eagerly that one began to suspect some ulterior motive. But flags, pins and other insignia are par for the course in Parliament nowadays. MPS stroll around festooned with more decorations than Douglas Bader or Rick from The Young Ones.

Last time Raab faced off against Angela Rayner, it had been on behalf of Boris Johnson. Sparks had flown. He’d even winked at her. Today’s outing was not a million miles away. It was like watching an odd couple back together again; all coy asides and knowing laughs. Imagine the reunion between Princess Margaret and Peter Townsend 40 years later.

Rayner initially made a break for the higher ground with topics that might interest a serious, statesmanlike centre-lefty type: Putin’s war, offshore tax havens, that sort of thing.

Grubbier queries were left to backbenchers like Clive Betts, who called for Raab to be suspended pending the outcome of a bullying probe. It was a broadsheet beginning but things rapidly turned tabloid.

Screeching like a panto dame, Rayner demanded apologies for things yet to be investigated. “What’s he still doing there?” she said, with a gesture at Raab. “Drain the swamp!” she said, jarringly quoting Donald Trump.

Had she any specific criticisms about his conduct, asked Raab. Rayner reverted to her two lines of attack – inflation and the Deputy PM once throwing some tomatoes into a bag.

Raab, straining to keep his resting face – pink-mottled rage – under control, accused Rayner of “bluster and mud-slinging”, which drew cheers from his back benches.

Soon more reinforcements arrived.

Jacob Rees-mogg began rattling off examples of Opposition bullying. This made Parliament sound a uniformly dreadful place to work – but at least it spread the blame around a bit.

Rayner wasn’t the only person overegging the pudding. Kirsten Oswald of the SNP began by “reiterating” her “party’s calls for Russia to end its brutal war of aggression” with all the potency of a JCR motion condemning the state of Israel.

Soon there were more irate demands: for an apology from Raab over a Budget he hadn’t been involved with and for the ongoing economic turmoil, as if he’d conjured up Covid and Ukraine for his own amusement.

The most scathing attacks on the Government were of the blue-on-blue variety. Tory backbenchers condemned government inaction on migrant crossings, while Esther Mcvey vowed to rebel against any tax rises unless HS2 is scrapped.

In the absence of some damning new evidence, these sorts of interjections should trouble Team Sunak more than the Raab affair.

The Deputy PM won his skirmish with Rayner easily enough, but will it make a blind bit of difference to the overall war? Almost certainly not.