Jowls wobbled, eyeballs bulged as if it were the constipation Olympics

Moments after touching tributes to Alex Salmond the Commons heard an urgent question about sleaze in Downing Street.

In a trice we leapt from affection to rancour. That's politics: blubbing one moment, furious with each other the next. Worse than a country wake. Yet they all appeared to be sober.

The question was provoked by the hot scoop that Scotland Yard was ordered to provide a presidential motorcade for Taylor Swift (pop singer, m'lud). Free tickets to concerts by the same artiste were palmed to various ministers, including our leading moraliser Sir Keir Starmer.

My dears, it was quite like the old days. A hapless minister hob-gobbled at the despatch box while opposition MPs thundered about corruption at No 10. 'Hypocrisy!' cried the opposition. 'Brass neck!' replied the lot in power. 'We'll take no lectures from the party opposite!'

That last one has come to acquire the comforting force of an Homeric epithet. When you hear, 'we'll take no lectures from the party opposite!' you know all is well with the world.

Exclamation marks were brandished, like lightsabers in a Star Wars film. Eyeballs bulged as at the constipation Olympics. We had disbelief! Infamy! And the most appalling pair of orange socks from Gareth Snell (Lab, Stoke Central).

Mr Snell has but one pair of shoes and they are, I regret to say, yellow brogues. Worn with orange socks, they become doubly revolting. Snell is no fool but he may not become a minister until he acquires some proper black shoes.

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Many attack Lord Alli for acting as the Labour Party's wardrobe mistress but given what he was up against on the fashion-atrocity front, I find it hard not to feel some sympathy for the man.

Back to sleaze. If we ever left it. Government backbenchers, affronted by suggestions that the PM might have a weakness for freebies, quivered with shock. Most managed to do this without making Sir Keir sound worse but Matt Western (Lab, Warwick & Leamington) could have phrased things more carefully. 'This was the sort of behaviour we had from Tories on an industrial scale,' said Mr Western. He was, I think, trying to be loyal.

Jowls wobbled, fingers were pointed. Shaun Davies (Lab, Telford) was told off by the Speaker for making 'hand gestures' at the Tories. If a British Sign Language interpreter tried that sort of thing he might be told 'wash your hands out'.

John Glen, shadow paymaster general, demanded among other things that Sir Keir, having trousered some £100,000 worth of freebies from Arsenal FC and others, should recuse himself from policy on a football regulator.

Ellie Reeves, minister without portfolio, drew her lips into a tunnel of disbelief and said 'this is utterly shameless!' She accused Mr Glen – who is actually a rather dull piece of cardboard – of 'cynical and confected outrage'. Ms Reeves, sister of the Chancellor, added: 'The work of change begins!'

Beside her, mouth in a cartoon down-crescent of glumness, sat another fine meritocrat, Georgia Gould. Although a new MP, she is already a minister at the Cabinet Office, the Whitehall department in charge of ethics. Ms Gould, since you ask, is a family chum of the Starmers. Her parents were top Blairites.

All of which leaves just enough room to mention defence questions. An early exchange saw John Healey, Defence Secretary, tiptoe around the Foreign Secretary's novel decision to give away the Chagos Islands to China-friendly Mauritius. We will now pay rent on an airbase there.

Sir Desmond Swayne (Con, New Forest West) sympathised with Mr Healey for apparently not having been told by David Lammy how much that rent will be.

Mr Healey just about kept a straight face but it looked very much as if Sir Desmond's suggestion was spot on. There have also been questions about whether or not Mr Lammy told Lord Robertson, who is leading a defence review for the government.

Did Mr Lammy really take that Chagos decision without consulting senior defence colleagues?