Tom Peck's Sketch: How will Major Tim Peake survive without six months of Prime Minister's Questions?

Big Ben struck noon and Major Tim Peake drifted upwards in to the viewing gantry. Above and beneath him, the earth’s bent sky spread out beyond its own horizon. The clouds marched their long march over the wide ocean. The green earth glowed in its golden light, more magical than his capacity even to dream it.

But the astronaut’s face was sad. He’d already logged on to the ISS wifi and been thrilled by supportive tweets from Sajid Javid, Caroline Dinenage and the Wales Office, but with BBC iplayer inaccessible from outer space, at least without the deployment of some hasslesome proxy server that he was too old to understand, he knew it would be six long months until he saw Prime Minister’s Question Time again.

The best wishes of David Cameron fell deaf upon the cold ears of space. The sound of Jeremy Corbyn could not breach the vacuum beyond the stratosphere.

As Mr Corbyn rose and shouted the letters “NHS” and a series of large random numbers, all Major Tim could see was Nature, turning in blind indifference to the follies of man. As “data went up fourfold”, Spain slid over the horizon, untouched by the Prime Minister’s random numbers of his own: “4,400 more operations. 21,000 more outpatient appointments. 2,000 accidents, 150 emergencies. 10,000 legs. 5,000 arms, and a partridge in a PCT.”

He could not know that down on earth, the Prime Minister’s pre-prepared jokes were breaking with the glaring silence of a galactic dawn. He sniped at Corbyn for wishing him a predictably politically correct “Season’s Greetings”, rather than the traditional “Happy Christmas.” It was so predictable, in fact, that David Cameron didn’t bother to check if it had actually happened, which it hadn’t. “I said Happy Christmas!” Mr Corbyn told him, and it being the season of goodwill, had a go at him for not listening.

One intervention that it’s best the astronaut did not see was from Ukip’s Douglas Carswell. Of course the Prime Minister didn’t bother to answer his question, he just threw yet another pre-cooked turkey of an insult at him, but Major Tim sees the bigger picture only too clearly.

He is the central character in the greatest political thriller of all time. A Brit in space, flying under the banner - and the funding - of the European Space Agency. He has six months to get back to Earth. Six months in which his country will decide whether to leave Europe. Could it really be, that on some cold June morning in space, the Soyuz capsule on its way to fetch him, the votes are counted, Britain turns its back? And then, up on the Space Station, the Romanians, the Poles, the Bulgarians, look first at one another, then at Major Tim, and start inching open the exit hatch? It’s cold out there, Tim. Not even the Wales Office can save you.