Prime Minister's Questions can too often be a festival of predictability, with Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer firing familiar attacks and rehearsed one-liners at each other as they fight to win their weekly face-off.
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Much of the usual preparations were clear to see. Tory MPs such as Sheryll Murray sought to help out the Prime Minister by suggesting Labour should "do the right thing and back" key policies like the Rwanda plan.
This was meant to be the day Mr Sunak needed to get on the front foot and show, after last week's battering suffered by the Tories at the local elections, that the Conservatives could still take the fight to the Opposition.
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However, Labour derailed his plans by dropping a bombshell, with another Conservative MP - Natalie Elphicke - crossing the floor to join the Opposition.
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Her defection was timed to take place just before the session kicked off, which meant the Prime Minister had no time to plan ahead and instead would be forced to think on his feet about any response.
Last week, Mr Sunak was able to play down the importance of Dan Poulter's defection from the Conservatives to Labour by joking about his poor attendance record in the House of Commons.
But today, there were no such jibes.
Sir Keir could not hide his glee that Ms Elphicke had defected in despair over the Tories' failure "to keep our borders safe and security" - knowing it would help deflect any attempts in the chamber to paint Labour as weak over migration.
Ms Elphicke has been outspoken on the issue and her position has been unwaveringly robust - so much so, many in Westminster would have expected her to be more likely to defect to Reform UK than Labour.
That makes her no better ally for the Labour leader, given how much flak the Opposition gets for being soft on immigration. He eagerly reminded MPs that she has been on the "front line" of the small boats crisis as the MP for Dover.
If Mr Sunak had been able to prepare, he could have had fun with the fact that Ms Elphicke had warned only last year in the Express that people should not trust "Sir Softie" because his party stood for open borders.
He could have also reminded Rachel Reeves of the time she suggested Labour's newest MP should "f**k off" amid a row over Marcus Rashford's free school meals campaign.
Such awkward moments may help explain why Labour decided it was best to drop the defection bombshell at a time when the Prime Minister could not work out any clever rebuttal.
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Instead, Mr Sunak sought to stick to his guns and try to spring a different trap on the Labour leader, with an attempt to draw him into condemning Sadiq Khan's call for "equivalence" between the actions of Hamas and Israel in their ongoing war.
The Prime Minister sought to make hay with Sir Keir's refusal to condemn the newly re-elected London Mayor but struggled to set the chamber alight, with MPs still reeling from the latest defection bombshell.
The decision by Ms Elphicke to cross the floor has sparked a joke in Westminster, inspired by her constituency, that MPs "think it is all Dover". The initial reaction on the Tory benches, with many MPs seen shaking their heads, would suggest so.
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After PMQs, Mr Sunak has a chance to prove them wrong this afternoon when MPs come to No 10 for a presentation on how he and his team still plans to win the next election.
If the Prime Minister manages to do enough to stop more Tories storming over to Labour, his fightback has a hope of success.
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