Lame jokes amid the looming winter chaos – the Commons is back in its comfort zone

Sir Lindsay Hoyle began proceedings by announcing that the King would be visiting Parliament next week – he offered the precise timing of “between 3.15pm and 3.45pm” with a temporary suspension of both Houses.

This was an appropriate opening to a tetchy session; suspension of services and precise timings (or lack thereof) are subjects du jour as a winter of strikes looms.

For Prime Minister’s Questions, the Speaker announced Dr Philippa Whitford in a tone that suggested she’d just won a Kenwood mixer or a Nissan Micra on a Saturday night TV game show. No such luck; instead, Dr Whitford used her prized time to ask a classic rehash of the SNP’S question of time-immemorial: “Why won’t you give us what we want, right now?” The PM batted this away with relative ease.

Sir Keir Starmer opened with an attempt to score points over recent housing about-turns – which quickly became a joust of lame jokery. “Pull the other one,” gurgled Sir Keir, who sounds like he is perpetually drowning in his own phlegm, as he suggested that Tory Nimby backbenchers might cheer on the PM for building more homes. He called Rishi Sunak “the blancmange Prime Minister”; bold from one whose own recent constitutional about-turns suggest he has an exoskeleton made of semolina.

Plastering on a smile taken directly from a stock photo, the Prime Minister dismissed this as “petty personality politics” and proudly insisted he was helping to “protect the character of local communities” – although, of course, one key aspect of the British countryside looks certain to shift on to the endangered characteristic list soon: namely that it votes Conservative.

Unable to score too many points on the back of Government about-turns, Sir Keir switched over to Baroness Mone.

The PM did a very convincing job of claiming to be “shocked” by the revelations; wait till he hears who was the chancellor when the Government signed over the cash! While this was something of a stretch, it did have the advantage of baiting the Labour frontbench: Emily Thornberry, who was dressed like Rab C Nesbitt attending a court date, gesticulated wildly. Samantha Dixon, the new MP for Chester looked on, with the air of a pensioner lost in a big Tesco, wondering what on earth she’d let herself in for. A mention of Gordon Brown attracted laughs – quite appropriately – unlike union leader Mick Lynch who, though not named, received a jeer as questions finally turned to the vexed issue of strikes.

“Working people” were bandied about between the PM and his would-be successor but nothing was said, nothing decided, and still the strikes loom.

Normally this is the time for some no-so-light relief, courtesy of the SNP’S Ian Blackford. However, having been defenestrated by his own MPS, the Highland Windbag could only look on as his successor, Stephen Flynn, resembling an egg at a funeral, paid him a monotonous tribute. Flynn’s pause after “he is a giant” was just long enough for a laugh at the family-sized MP for Ross, Skye and Lochaber’s expense from both sets of benches. I’m sure it wasn’t deliberate at all.

Funniest though, was Flynn’s insistence that Blackford had somehow “seen off ” three consecutive Conservative PMS. (“Why did you see him off, then?” came the inevitable heckle from the Tory benches.) Amidst the winter’s chaos, familiarity is reassuring. By the time the King visits next week, perhaps the only thing still on track will be the SNP’S long march away from reality.