By Quentin Letts for the Daily Mail
Published: 00:23 GMT, 14 February 2019 | Updated: 00:35 GMT, 14 February 2019
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A PMQs we heard talk of ‘honour’ and ‘mindfulness’. There were mentions of the late England goalie Gordon Banks and of the women’s FA Cup. If I tell you that towards the end we were on to a question about eating dogs and cats, you may gather that it was an eclectic session.
Westminster may still be in the grip of Brexit-mania – you sense it in the air like static electricity or the down-breeze waft from a sewage farm – but MPs are realising that the electorate is heartily sick of that. Our country knows it has been shafted by a clique of Europhile obsessives. Hence, perhaps, yesterday’s jumble of topics, displacement activity before today’s resumption of the Brexit ding-dongs.
George Freeman (Con, Mid Norfolk) wondered if recipients of knighthoods should lose their gongs if they behave with dishonour. Theresa May pretty much said yes, although with her genius for dullness she made her answer unpunchy and verbose, so as not to upset the Civil Service.
Jeremy Corbyn, serial incompetent, tried to salute the House’s retiring Clerk but managed to get his name wrong
Chris Ruane (Lab, Vale of Clwyd) had asked if she supported ‘mindfulness’ in schools, prisons, hospitals and the workplace. ‘Mindfulness’ is a mumbo-jumbo term for being less tunnel-eyed and more emotionally connected. Exhibit one: er, Madam Glumbucket.
Mrs May’s eyes shuttered like the old terminus announcements board at Paddington station, in the days before it was computerised. She unclipped her mouth and out came a sober, utterly unmemorable answer about ‘mindfulness-based cognitive therapy being recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’.
She read this from a typed sheet – I suppose Mr Ruane had let her