It was Boris, the blonde-haired Billy Bunter of the cabinet, who gave the game away.
Not that he did anything, but that was the point, he didn’t, and nor did anyone else.
Welcome to Prime Ministers Questions on Wednesday October the 19th.
Boris, you will recall, is presently Her Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.
That involves him travelling the world apologising to all those foreign leaders he has been rude about in the past.
When he is back in town he hangs about Whitehall as if he too can’t quite believe it’s happened.
Thus he could be found today desporting himself down the government bench for PMQs.
His sponsor, Theresa May, was there for serious purpose – to remind MPs it was PM’s Questions and not PM’s Answers.
Boris was there to remind MPs he was available for parties, after dinner speaking and – if allowed – face painting.
As his leader made her way through the half hour PM’s donate to democracy each week, her Foreign Secretary sharpened up his act.
As she grappled with Jeremy Corbyn and the NHS, Boris grappled with Jeremy Hunt and what appeared to be his latest conversational gambit.
Theresa May had the best of it since Labour’s Jeremy decided to lose his way half way through his contribution.
Having got her on the ropes last week, today he decided it was better to hit himself a couple of times to even things up.
Having showed signs of perking up last week, it was back to perking down on the Labour benches.
Everyone looked somewhere else as the traditional one step back became two.
Meanwhile Boris, indifferent to all around him, got on with his act.
To be fair it was not much of an audience; Jeremy Hunt, in permanent terror, on one side and Michael Fallon, in permanent denial on the other.
But, ever the optimist, he threw scraps at both of them as he joked his way through the session.
He even seemed to toss a couple far as Chancellor Hammond. He would not want too many of those sort of smiles in his audience.
Theresa continued her way through PMQs with that easy ignoring of answers that seems to come with the job.
The benches thinned out as those out of her eyeline slipped out for lunch.
Boris spread his girth even further in front of him as he leaned forward to find a new audience.
The Prime Minister treated al comers with equal indifference.
At 12.45pm Speaker Bercow finally gave up.
“Bo Jo (Boris Johnson) Scrabble” flickr photo by jeffdjevdet https://flickr.com/photos/jeffdjevdet/28325596095 shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license
