The slow political death of Sir Keir Starmer continued again today. Westminster must increasingly resemble a torture chamber for the Prime Minister. He’s probably looking forward to next week and his party’s evisceration at the local elections as a moment when he might be blessed with the sweet release of career oblivion. In the meantime, we get to watch the intervening thousand cuts.

Talking of people visibly enjoying things, it’s very hard to think of someone who has greater job satisfaction in the world today than Emily Thornberry. The chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee increasingly resembles a tribute act to herself. Today she vamped in wearing a sensational get-up with a faintly gothic air. The two victims of the purring Dame this week were Sir Philip Barton and Morgan McSweeney. It had been reported elsewhere that Dame Emily had said of the latter that she intended to ‘make the little shitweasel sing’. Thus she secures her reputation as the love-child of Liberace and Al Capone. She wasn’t the only one there to enjoy the most recent act of Starmergeddon. Present in the back few rows of the committee was the unmistakable figure of Diane Abbott. I couldn’t be absolutely sure that she hadn’t smuggled in popcorn.

In fact, both committee hearings were a little bit of a damp squib. Thornberry may well have had the air of Sybil Fawlty at her most imperious, but Sir Philip seemed to be taking his cues from Manuel: his basic line was ‘I know nothing’. Thornberry grilled him on what on earth the point of vetting was when Mandy had been given ‘access-all-areas’ anyway. In response, Barton just sort of mouthed at her........

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