QUENTIN LETTS: Farewell to the Olive and Angie show

We learned two things from deputy PMQs: that Labour's no-tax-rises election promise was mere bubblegum; and that when Sir Keir Starmer is absent, time spins faster.

Sir Keir was en route to the Commonwealth summit where he will be bringing his repartee and incorrigible zing to poor Polynesia. 

Lorikeets will drop from palm trees, stunned by his wit. Residents should not panic if they spot the Apolima Strait receding. 

This will not signify an imminent tsunami. It will be the tidal waters racing for safety, fleeing the nimbus of paralysing flatness that accompanies our PM where'er he plods. At Westminster the duty of taking PMQs fell to his deputy, Angela Rayner. 

She and Rachel Reeves entered six minutes before midday and they looked delighted as they sashayed to their seats amid Labour hurrahs.

Maybe I have misconstrued Ms Reeves, whose past glumness I have occasionally attributed to job fatigue or worries about the economy. Maybe the reason she has often looked down in the dumps was that she was accompanied by Sir Keir. With him on the far side of the world she looked skittish and gay.

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Rayner jokes about missing 'battle of the gingers' as she clashes with Oliver Dowden at deputy PMQs

It can be reported that the Chancellor has again changed the hue of her hair. Earlier this month it went from glistening onyx to something more like the colour of an Irish setter. Not a success. She has now come out of the red and headed quite a long way back into the black. Must have cost a fortune.

As we are all discovering, however, she does not much mind about that. After taking her front-bench seat she spotted a friend in the upstairs gallery and gestured happily to her altered hair. Is this repeated dyeing a sign of indecision? And where does she find the hours? One does not recall Sir Geoffrey Howe spending much time on his barnet.

Facing Ms Rayner was her long-standing opponent and foil, Sir Oliver 'Olive' Dowden. Dear Olive, wet as Winalot, announced that this would be the last time he and Ms Rayner had a go at each other, for he is to leave the front bench once a new Conservative leader is in place.

Thus ends one of the great partnerships. Antony & Cleopatra, Bang & Olufsen, Siegfried & Roy, Olive & Angie: this is the sort of stellar company we are discussing. One minced, the other had a docker's roll; one fluted florally, the other was a burper of fried onion; one was precise and intellectually particular, the other little bothered about grammar or factual considerations. These two were yin and yang, gin and milk, yet somehow it worked.

The bout began. Sir Oliver daintily inquired what Ms Rayner understood by 'working people' (by which term the Government will allegedly decide whether or not to impose its tax rises).

Ms Rayner sucked in some breath and the clerks held on to their ledgers. Then she released the first of several torrents of abuse, each one sending twisters of dust and wind and unsecured paper across the Commons table.

Sir Oliver, model of politeness, repeated his inquiry – 'I will give her another go,' he squeaked –only for a further roar of abuse and general bedlam to whoosh forth from a smirking Ms Rayner. She was loving it. He was loving it. The house was loving it.

For all the bombast it was plain that she, indeed the Government and its party strategists, had and have no real idea what that 'working people' tax promise meant in Labour's manifesto. Did this worry her? Pas du tout, mes braves. Ms Rayner is not built for regrets. She is built for pleasure, perks, power, and she will pulverise anything that stands in her way.

And on the faces of various ministers beside her, you could see only enjoyment. And the thought germinating: 'If only we had her instead of that miserable nonentity Starmer.'