Gruesome rhetoric at PMQs. The horror began with Sir Keir Starmer revealing that he can tell the time. ‘It’s three minutes past twelve,’ he announced. Rowdy Tories immediately demanded to know how soon he’d alter that statement. Sir Keir postulated a medical emergency, a patient suffering from ‘chest pains and fearing a heart attack,’ hoping for an ambulance to arrive within 18 minutes. But when, he asked the Prime Minister, would the vehicle actually show up?

Rishi waffled about investing extra cash in this, that and the other part of the NHS.

‘He’s deflecting,’ said Sir Keir. ‘The clock started ticking straight away,’ meaning 12.03 with the paramedics due to show up at 12.20. ‘So I ask him again. When will that ambulance arrive?’

‘Because of the extra funding we’re putting in,’ said Rishi ‘… we will improve ambulance times.’ Pretty lame. He pointed out that Labour refused to support guaranteed minimum standards of care. Which means that tardy ambulances are all down to Sir Keir. Nothing to do with Rishi.

Sir Keir checked up on his patient, abandoned on the floor, still desperate for help. Then he read out the real-life arrival times of ambulances called at noon. ‘In Peterborough, ten past two. In Northampton twenty past two. In Plymouth twenty to three.’ These are average times, he said, ‘not worst case scenarios.’ It sounded chilling.

Rishi spotted a weakness in the list and pounced. ‘The one place he didn’t mention was Wales,’ he said, ‘where ambulance waiting times are worse.’

Sir Keir brushed Wales aside. He had his imaginary patient to nurse and he gave us an update. The victim is now, ‘in a bad way,’ he told us. ‘Sweating, dizzy, their chest tightening., and still waiting, listening to the clock tick.’ He asked Rishi to imagine the patient’s feelings, ‘knowing that an ambulance could still be hours away.’

Rishi repeated himself. If Sir Keir cared about patients he’d be in favour of guaranteed minimum standards. ‘He is not putting patients first because he is in the pockets of his union paymasters.’

Then came Sir Keir’s big reveal. The case wasn’t a fictional exercise but a real patient, suffering from cancer, who succumbed to chest pains and died, ‘because the hospital couldn’t prioritise her.’ Sir Keir completed his portrait by giving her name, her home town and her age, 26. ‘As a dad, I can’t even fathom that pain,’ he added, smiting his heart theatrically. He asked Rishi to explain himself to her family.

Snookered, Rishi could only repeat his guff about guaranteeing minimum standards.

Sir Keir knew he’d won this grisly round of poker. ‘That’s his answer to the family? Deflect. Blame others.’ And he summed up the state of the NHS. ‘Lethal chaos,’ he snarled. All that remained was for one leader to accuse the other of ‘playing political games.’ They both did so, naturally enough. Sir Keir hurled the insult at Rishi who replied that Sir Keir was ‘the living embodiment’ of hypocritical expediency.

Sir Keir had now fired his six shots and Rishi shifted the debate to his preferred battleground. He accused Remain-supporting Sir Keir of inconsistences after promising a second Brexit referendum and then changing his mind.

‘He’s not just in favour of free movement of people but free movement of principles,’ said Rishi. A decent soundbite but less effective than Sir Keir’s macabre stunt. But what an unedifying debate. Like watching two morticians fighting over a corpse. Literally.