The Hattie show

I’d be tempted to call it listless. But everyone was reading from lists. At today’s rather sleepy PMQs I counted six MPs who recorded their sympathy for those affected by the recent tragedies in Afghanistan and Camberwell. The Speaker needs to act or these sessions will turn into Prime Minister’s Condolences.

Gordon Brown’s in Italy, saving the world, so Harriet Harman took his place and gave her much-loved impersonation of a rather tetchy duchess supervising the kitchen while Cook recovers from hives. William Hague, unsurprisingly, took her to task on the government’s investment plans and invited her to ‘translate into plain English’ the Prime Minister’s claim that spending in 2013 would rise by ‘zero percent’. Having had a whole week to prepare her answer, Harman said, ‘All the figures are set out in the Budget book.’ The House laughed, but with dismay rather than delight.