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       Keir Starmer spent PMQs refusing to answer Kemi Badenoch's questions (Image: PA)

       It’s called Prime Minister’s Questions of course but I rather think a more honest title would be Prime Minster’s Question Dodging. Indeed a virgin observer of PMQs might reasonably expect the Q’s to be rewarded with A’s as a matter of course, but of course they never are. The aforementioned virgin would be as utterly clueless as to the leader of the country’s intentions for Britain at the end of the 45 minutes of mock interrogation as they were at the beginning.

       In the past this used to be part of the dark arts of politics, a mix of magician’s feint and clever misdirection, but in recent years the contempt with which this House holds the voter is so apparent most don’t even bother trying to hide their non-answers. Which is a shame as Kemi Badenoch actually made a reasonable fist of things this afternoon — after her car-crash performances of the last few weeks.

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       Alas our favourite knight of the realm millionaire champion of working people (shurely some mistake?) simply refused to answer her questions.

       So she asked:

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       No answer

       Did the Prime Minister regret raising taxes on business (through employers’ National Insurance)?

       No answer

       Does the PM agree, as everyone can see, that his Chancellor has made a terrible mistake?

       No answer

       Would he exempt hospices, pharmacies and care providers from NI tax rises?

       No answer.

       There was plenty of bluster and of course interminable mentions of the “￡22bn black hole” but no answers.

       Even more odd the Right Honourable member for Holborn and St Pancras kept asking the Leader of the Opposition what she would do.. sparking an increasingly rare bit of levity from Kemi who quipped: “He wants me to answer the questions today, perhaps we should swap sides!” (and from a nameless chuntering Tory “you’re the ones in Government!”)

       And on a number of occasions today you felt Keir who, to be fair, has a had a bit on his plate in the last few weeks, rather longed to be back in nice, safe opposition.

       Twice he accused Kemi of “carping from the sidelines” and you felt there was an unsaid “and that’s my job.”

       Elsewhere the Labour whips had done a remarkable job of largely keeping the lid on Labour’s unabashed attack on disability benefits which you may have thought might have rent the party asunder by now.

       But Diane Abbott, bobbing up and down like a particularly angry Jack-in-a-box finally got her moment.

       The Hackney hatchet woman tore strips off Starmer in the wake of Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall’s plans to cut ￡5bn from sickness and disability benefits.

       She savaged Starmer’s rather weasley plea that slashing welfare payments for up to a million people was a moral duty.

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       Ms Abbott said: "Could we have less of this rhetoric about this ￡5bn package of disability benefits so-called reform being 'moral'.

       "There is nothing moral about cutting benefits for what may be up to a million people. This is not about morality, this is about the Treasury's wish to balance the country's books on the back of the most vulnerable people and poor people in this society".

       Ouch.

       Not sure where the question was, and I’m not sure Diane knew either… but dammit, someone had to say it.

       Elsewhere there was much of the mundane — random questions and assertions on hare coursing, plans for theme parks in suicidally unsexy places, the out-of-date procurement plans of our “bimbling” MoD (scarily accurate assessment) and it was left to the unlikely sage that is Lee Anderson to put his finger on the relevance of PMQs if, indeed there are no PMA’s.

       “I come to this chamber every week,” he said, “to ask sensible questions” (minor outbreak of mirth). “I expect sensible answers but all I get is glazed expressions and waffle.”

       He doesn’t get a lot right doesn’t our Lee, but he was right on the money today.

       I’ll leave you with one for the pub tonight: Sir Keir and others paid tribute to Group Captain John “Paddy” Hemingway, the last surviving pilot of “The Few”, the men of Fighter Command who fought in the Battle of Britain. He died this week aged 105.

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       Group Captain John flew Hurricanes and Spitfires and was shot down four times, twice in a period of a few days during the battle against the Luftwaffe over southern England.

       His wartime career, the selflessness, the brute courage, the notion of country first, is both jaw-droppingly amazing and truly humbling. If you haven’t read it yet I encourage you to do so. But I wonder what this hero came to think of the Britain he saved?

       Discuss. And mine’s a pint.