PMQs Review: The vanishing woman finally emerges

She’s here! Finally! After completely disappearing from public view, without a snap or footage to confirm her whereabouts, inevitable cranky theories and wild speculation flooded social media.

And yet here she was, for the first time since it was reported Tory right wingers had alighted on her as the candidate to replace Rishi Sunak and take the party into the general election – Penny Mordaunt sat on the front bench of the House of Commons.

Even by her standards – and in every PMQs Mordaunt looks like she’s there under duress, possibly trying to give two winks to indicate she’s OK – the leader of the house looked miserable. Even more so when Keir Starmer touched on the weekend’s headlines.

“He’s now so diminished that his entire focus is on stopping his MPs holding the sword of Damocles above his head – perhaps even literally in the case of the Leader of the House,” Starmer told the prime minister. Mordaunt quickly chatted to chief whip Simon Hart beside her to indicate she hadn’t been listening to the business of the house for which she is nominally responsible. Sunak looked around him confusedly like he’d lost his pen, or his authority, or something.

It was a rare stand-out moment in a prime minister’s questions so forgettable it’s possible that it never happened. Like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Remember Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? No, of course you don’t, because it was a series of tired old tropes from a franchise which should long have been put out of its misery, like this government.

PMQs is now a microcosm of how the entire general campaign will pan out. Starmer, as today, lays out the government’s failures. His first question today managed to encompass the early release of violent prisoners due to a lack of spaces, small boat numbers, NHS waiting lists and the impact of the budget on pensioners.

And then Sunak responds that he’s got a plan, the country would “go back to square one” under Labour and, besides, as a lawyer Starmer sometimes defended unsavoury characters.

“Higher taxes and back to square one with Labour or tax cuts and real change with the Conservatives!” Sunak yelled at one point as James Cleverly, who now appears to wear two watches like a referee, threatened to roar himself to death. It’s not clear what “real change” was meant by the man who made a conference speech decrying the political failures of the past 30 years then appointed David Cameron to his cabinet.

Proceedings elsewhere felt flat too. Lee Anderson and George Galloway, once again sat together in their mini rogues’ gallery, kept trying to attract the speaker’s eye to no avail. Andrew Rosindell, now back in the chamber after his lengthy absence, has returned to his favoured hobby horse of Rexit (Romford leaving London). Sarah Atherton, the Tory MP for Wrexham, tried to do a Harold Wilson and suggest that her city’s football club’s recent success was somehow down to there being a Conservative government, rather than being bankrolled by two Hollywood multi-millionaires.

Perhaps what’s most telling, however, is the number of Conservatives rising to ask about housing development in their constituency. Angela Richardson (Guildford), Peter Bottomley (Worthing West), Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) – all used their questions to raise their constituents’ objections to the building of more housing locally. This is now an increasing occurrence and, for the decreasing band of Tories who want to remain in Parliament after the election, what they’ll be putting on their leaflets – not the gurning face of Sunak.