The Sketch: Is it Custardy Minus or Custardy Plus? Or just a plea for more porridge?

The Prime Minister sat down, leaving a noose dangling over Mr Thing's head.

Mr Thing leapt to his feet, thrust his head decisively into the deathtrap and swung off around the dispatch box, spluttering, purpling, dying. How Labour laughed, how they cheered. What low creatures they are.

Tony Blair had given his patter about how public spending improves public services. He said: "It would be folly to take it out. Speaking of which." Then he sat down. He doesn't often sit down in the middle of a sentence. What could he mean? The whole packed House went still. A breathless hush in the close. Mr Thing nodded at the Speaker, stood up and started to speak.

Why oh why? Scabrous word why scabrous word oh scabrous word why. Mr Thing scabrous word fell for it.

The Prime Minister expects and the leader of the Opposition obeys. Why did he stand up? The humiliation was not complete. "It's not the money that's actually spent, it's what it's spent on that counts more!" Mr Thing quoted the Prime Minister from 1997. Then, in his customary pause for breath, a clear low prompt came from the government back bench.

It was Stephen Pound. He said: "How many?" "How many," Mr Thing began. Ow! No, no, no! Two in a row! Labour couldn't overdo its ecstasy. It hadn't enjoyed a parliamentary occasion so much since Margaret Thatcher's bra straps burst and her bosoms bounced around the dispatch box. Has that story grown in the telling? I'm assured it has not.

Mr Blair's mastery is ever more complete. Mr Thing is not the man to take him on. Compare, if you like Mr Thing's genial, regimental, best-man's speech at the Press Club luncheon and, on the same day, Mr Blair's wide-ranging, free-flowing, single-handed domination of the select committee on every subject from a proposed Interactive Community Fund to annihilating Iraq.

Mr Thing is a nice man but hasn't got the calibre. He's a small bore and – it gives me no pleasure to say this – Mr Blair is a whole battery.

To Mr Thing's credit, he kept going, if only on his same old questions. Of course, the same old questions keep getting the same old answers. He hasn't pushed the Prime Minister into saying something new the whole parliament.

He's got all the material, Mr Thing has. He's got prime ministerial prevarication, equivocation and outright lies; he's got public service disaster, he's got crashing stock markets, he's got all the ingredients, he just can't make cake.

After PMQs, David Blunkett stood up to announce Justice For All. He's going to spend £600m on a computer system for the criminal justice system (oi, I could do it for half that). There'll be a wide range of popular measures, the removal of double jeopardy for new DNA evidence, serious fraud cases to be dealt with by a judge alone, a Guidelines Council and two new forms of punishment: Custody Minus and Custody Plus.

Custody Minus means you don't go to jail, and Custody Plus means you serve your whole sentence but not in custody. Unless I've got it all wrong and he was talking about Custardy Plus. Which is what criminals used to call porridge. I think that's one reform we can all agree on.

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