Simon Carr: House teaches the Met a thing or two about going on the attack

It's not exactly the smack of firm government, is it, but that's not what Tories do any more. They are still purging the brand of Nasty Party connotations.

Presumably that's what Ed Balls has discerned and why he is always looking for dividing lines to show the Tories are "soft on law and order".

Oh, they're so tricksy – you almost warm to them when you see the game they are playing.

Ed talked of the "cowardly and despicable" attack on the Royal car. He used it to plead that "the cost-cutting review of royal security" be shelved. He has calculated his career won't necessarily be boosted by the heir to the throne and his wife being violated outside Hamleys.

So he's arguing that their security shouldn't be cut – in order that ordinary people shouldn't suffer cuts either. "Oh, typical Tories, extra protection is good enough for the rich and royal but not good enough for decent people!"

Oh, come, come, you say. Surely Mr Balls, like any of us, may have a normal human reaction on behalf of the heir to the throne and his attractive wife? When it comes to normal human reactions, and I know he will feel the admiration in the remark, Ed Balls is a crocodile.

So, Theresa pottered about the House. She kept saying how nobody wanted water cannon to be used against rioters, but said it so coyly that she drew increasingly concentrated fire from Labour backbenchers who had discerned her evasions. Would she rule out water cannon, would she or would she not?

In the end she was able "to refer the hon gent to my previous answers". Is that a confirmation she was considering permitting the use of water cannon? Or luring Labour into outrage so that she can say: "I clearly said nobody in Britain wanted it – and that included myself." Tricksy May.

The "feral mob" (Charlie Elphicke) got a bit of a pasting for having created "national disgust" (Tobias Ellwood). And of course the "brave professionalism of our democracy- protecting police force putting themselves in harm's way" was applauded by right-thinking people all over the spectrum.

Mind you, if I was a policeman the last few weeks would have been a particular career highlight. It must have been like playing Wormwood Scrubs – but without the offside rule.

David Tredinnick said a couple of sensible things – why not route demonstrators through the parks rather than down Whitehall past visible symbols of authority? And where have all our snatch squads gone?

And David Lammy made a neat and practical anti-kettling bon mot: "Isn't the point of a kettle to bring things to the boil?"