Sir Keir’s spin doctors have been enjoying clips of Tony Blair’s performances as opposition leader. In the mid-1990s, Blair took aim at John Major with this, ‘I lead my party, he follows his.’ At today’s PMQs, Sir Keir tried the same judo-throw on Rishi Sunak. ‘I’ve changed my party. He’s bullied by his,’ he said. Less smooth, somehow.

The session was dominated by facile insults and awkward name-calling. Sir Keir wants to depict Rishi as a pampered globalist who spent the 2008 financial crash in the banking sector, ‘making millions betting on the misery of working families.’ At the same time, noble Sir Keir was putting ‘terrorists and murderers’ in jail. His ritual boast, ‘I was the director of public prosecutions,’ was greeted by screams and groans of pain, as if the house had suddenly filled with tear-gas.

Throughout PMQs, Sunak wore a look of pent-up irritation

Stephen Flynn, of the SNP, said he’d watched a telly programme last night that showed an unarmed man being shot dead by the Israel Defence Forces. Flynn asked the PM to call this a ‘war-crime’ on the basis of his third-hand testimony alone. Rishi declined. Flynn tried again and urged Rishi to ‘tell the people of these isles…that shooting an unarmed man walking under a white flag is a war-crime.’ Enemies of Flynn might suggest he was using this video to try and embarrass a political opponent on the cheap. Labour’s Tahir Ali did something similar. He claimed that Rishi ‘has the blood of thousands of innocent people on his hands.’

Rishi turned on his accuser. ‘That’s the face of the “changed” Labour party,’ he said tartly.

The issue that nobody, not even MPs, can ignore any more is ‘net zero’. Finally our governors have discovered that their policies will likely create net-zero jobs in Britain but jobs galore in Asian countries that don’t love us. Exporting steel production is like hiding pregnant teenagers in a convent. The truth comes out eventually. Today, the culprits tried to blame each other.

Sir Keir accused Rishi of turning us into ‘the only major economy that no longer makes its own steel.’ He added that the Tories have spent £500 million ‘to make 3000 steel workers [in Port Talbot] redundant.’ He forgot to mention that Labour are keener anti-carbon zealots than the Conservatives.

His backbencher Sarah Champion, MP for Redcar, seconded her leader. ‘I stand with steel-workers,’ she cried as she urged Rishi to ‘change his destructive course’ (which is the same course supported by her own party). She ordered Rishi to adopt a plan to save the steel industry devised by her and the unions. Bit late, isn’t it? Rishi slapped her down and called her ‘churlish’ for not acknowledging his role in the Port Talbot debacle. Rishi said that he didn’t lose 3,000 jobs. No, in fact, he saved 5,000 jobs after learning that Tata’s original plan could have involved junking Port Talbot altogether, like a broken hair-drier. Good luck to Rishi as he tours south Wales before the general election proclaiming himself the ‘saviour of 5,000 jobs.’

The barb that he aimed at Sarah Champion – ‘churlish’ – was the day’s outstanding moment. Rishi has dropped the veneer of charm and springy good humour. Instead of Mr Perfect, he’s become Mr Tetchy. And he no longer makes any effort to conceal his broodings.

Throughout the session, Sunak wore a look of pent-up irritation, grinding his jaw, glancing downwards or over his shoulders, his eyes glassy and unfocused. He was like a teenager forced to watch his parents smooching on their anniversary. The whole monstrous ordeal seemed more than he could bear. The body language was clear: throw in the towel.