Boring. That was the universal response to Wednesday’s first prime minister’s questions of the new parliament. Where was the screaming, yelling, insulting and air punching? This is supposed to be Strictly Come Politicking. Get off stage, the two of you. Zero points.

The Telegraph condemned the new PMQs as a “love-in”. The prime minister was like a teenager “breaking the news he had lost his virginity”, according to one headline. For an Independent columnist it was intolerably tame, just “good-natured joshing”. The Times’s sketch writer concluded that the new horses “will need time to learn to bray”, noting that it was so dull some MPs walked out before the curtain.

PMQs is now virtually the only time each week when MPs actually fill the chamber, which is why the session is reported not just by lobby journalists but also by sketch writers as drama critics. For the most part, the sketch is the page you know you can turn to for a belly laugh.

The popularity of watching two apparent grownups being rude to each other is shown by the fact that PMQs is now being broadcast globally by the BBC. It is a particular favourite on America’s C-Span network. One addict, President George HW Bush, could not believe John Major would descend into “that pit … nose-to-nose with the opposition, all yelling at each other”.

The result, of course, is........

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