At the End of the Day, They Were Clutching at Balls

MPs are always moaning about how the media ignore their debates. But it's their own fault. Questions must be tabled two weeks in advance, which made sense when they were written out with quill pens and civil servants had to send a messenger to get the statistics from the town crier of Chipping Sodbury, or whatever they did.

It's a ridiculous delay now, and the net effect yesterday was that at question time yesterday nobody could ask the home secretary, David Blunkett, about his batty new scheme to make us all check in for flights up to four hours in advance so we can give out our home addresses, as if a terrorist will blench at saying: "63 Acacia Grove, Sale". When a suicide bomber flies a plane into a nuclear power station, you can bet there won't be a note in the wreckage saying, "If out, please leave with Mrs Piggot at number 61".

The only topical moment came when Norman Baker complained about slow progress on animal experiments. Why, the government had not even stopped re search for cosmetics. "What about Beckham's nail varnish?" growled Dennis Skinner, a reference to the pink fingernails sported by England's epicene football captain at the christening of Liz Hurley's baby. Not just a topical reference, but a tabloid one! If they ever get round to modernising the old place, we'll have questions about Jade on Big Brother and whether Terry Venables is the right choice for Leeds.

Moments later, in came my old pal Michael Fabricant. He sat down, and for some reason grabbed his own parts. As I pointed this out to cruel colleagues in the gallery, his bleeper vibrated. He released his generative equipment, pulled it out - the bleeper, that is - and read it. "Stop clutching your balls," I expect it said. Either way, that's what he did. Those whips don't miss anything.

Anyhow, that was just one balls-clutching moment in the course of the afternoon. Take the brief discussion on asylum seekers. Both sides tackled this with a great armoury of new cliches.

Hugo Swire thought what the government was doing was "too little and too late"; "at the end of the day", it was just another government failure.

Beverley Hughes, the immigration minister, hit back with "coming from somebody from the party opposite, it's a bit rich..."

A lot of people care about this issue. But Ms Hughes, spent so much time evading the topic and abusing the other side that even the Speaker intervened. "The hon lady shouldn't worry about the party opposite," he barked, which is Speaker-talk for "Shut up, you idiot." I can't see him from where I sit, but I'm sure he was grabbing at his own balls. Who wouldn't be?

Later the smooth, cultured, expensively educated Oliver Letwin had a balls-clutching moment for Bob Ainsworth, a junior minister who sounds exactly like loveable Cockney thicko Arthur Mullard.

Mr Letwin pointed out that the home secretary had promised to double the maximum sentence for dealing in cannabis. But he had also said he would downgrade pot to a class C drug.

"At present, cannabis is a class B drug and the maximum sentence is 14 years... as a class C drug, this would be reduced to five years. If he multiplies this by two, the sentence will, I gather from the mathematicians [Mr Letwin went all mimsy and Cambridge Union at this point] be 10 years. Can you explain, for those of us who are not mathematically inclined, how a move from 14 years to 10 years constitutes a doubling of the sentence?"

Poor Mr Ainsworth was up in public, so could not grab at his genitals. But he looked as if he'd like to. Or, failing that, at Mr Letwin's.