PMQs Sketch: George 'Two Per Cent' Osborne gets all Prime Ministerial

George Osborne stood in for the Prime Minister this week. Dave’s gone to Japan, nominally for the G7 though a quick detour to the local Nissan assembly line for a spot of sleeves-rolled-up Brexit scaremongering cannot be ruled out.

Custom dictates that when the Prime Minister is away the Leader of the Opposition doesn’t turn up for Prime Minister’s Questions so - just like every week - Jeremy Corbyn didn't. In fact, by marching up and down Whitehall with some steelworkers from Port Talbot, it could be argued he had his most effective PMQs yet.

Maria Eagle took his place. She wanted to know why George Osborne hadn’t made Google pay more tax. He wanted to know why she hadn’t made Google pay any tax. So that was the end of that one.

Then Ms Eagle asked about George’s ‘omnishambles budget’, and a very boring MP called Michael Ellis shouted ‘Boring!’

This is the same Michael Ellis who three weeks ago told the house a story about a stained glass window commissioned for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Unfortunately it is a story that can only be fully appreciated when repeated in full so whether you skip the next four paragraphs is up to you:

“It’s interesting to note that, during the preparations for that stained-glass window, sketches were made for the design to be used. We got to the last drawing, when it was noticed – not by me, I hasten to add, but by an expert! – that the chain on the unicorn was the wrong way round. And this was noticed just in time, and consequently changed,” he said.

“Later, when Her Majesty came to Parliament and saw the window in situ, I mentioned to Her Majesty that this had nearly happened – that the unicorn’s chain had nearly been placed the wrong way round on the stained-glass window.

"Her Majesty smiled broadly. I won’t indicate the conversation we had – but if I say that later, somebody else remarked that it was always important to ensure that a unicorn’s chain is the right way round!

"I dread to think what might have happened if it had been placed the wrong way round! It would have been a story to be told for a long time to come!”

By you Mr Ellis, but no one else.

These occasions are always an audition for the top job, and for Osborne it could hardly have gone any better. He’ll have known that according to a YouGov poll published that morning, the percentage of the population that considers him ‘Prime Ministerial’ currently stands at two, which when the standard 3 point margin of error is factored in, could even be less than zero. Having made it through the full half hour without actively attempting to disprove the theory that it’s impossible to lick your elbows, that number could be well on its way to five.

After Ms Eagle was finished, Richard Drax rose from the backbenches. Drax shares his surname with Bond villain Sir Hugo Drax because his granddad was at Eton with Ian Fleming. Drax doesn’t share his full name with a Bond villain because his full name is Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax.

“What a privilege it is to be called by you, Mr Speaker. If the remain team have their day on 24 June, I shall have to apply by email to Herr Juncker to ask a question,” he said. Whether this was an attempt at a joke or an attempt at intelligent discourse it is impossible to tell in these rarefied referendum days, but it might be worth noting that, after his expensively acquired education at Harrow School, Mr Drax went on to obtain a Diploma in Rural Land Management from the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester.

Normal service resumes next week.