Midday, Wednesday, and spaniel-eyed Gorbals wheezed to his feet to announce the next item of business.
"Questions to the Prime Minister," he fluted in his old man's reedy treble.
He becomes more like Wee Willy Winkie by the day, shrinking into a Speakerly core.
Normally those electric words - "questions to the Prime Minister!" - have the effect of that burst of notes before Chris Tarrant pings in the questions on "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?".
<p>Normally you can sense a bracing for excitement, onlookers rapt, participants clenching their buttocks.
<p>Spotlights on. Auditorium plunged into darkness. Attention, mes braves! Le jour de gloire est arrive!
<p>Normally. But not yesterday.
So far as yesterday's Commons was concerned, Speaker Mick, resuming his seat, could have been a family man easing into a deckchair on his Surrey lawn.
The Chamber was dozy, its air warm and still.
Had there been hollyhocks at the back of the gallery they would have nodded gently to the visit of a browsing bumblebee.
"Flub dub," went one of the swing doors at the far end of the House.
Someone had just left the Chamber. Lucky blighter. It was strange to think that this was the day before a much-anticipated by-election. Where was the tension?
Where the bustle and fury of a wounded baron defending his barbican?
Goodness knows, his position has been under attack these recent weeks. Labour's walls have been badly holed by enemy cannon.
A stooped, darkened object shuffled to the despatch box. It was Her Majesty's First Lord of the Treasury.
Here was the head of our elected Government, supposedly a mighty man in the world, the long-term dauphin who waited long for his Throne - yet seems uncertain what to do now that he has seized it.
The House stirred not a whisker.
Frowning and tousled, the Prime Minister started to read a tribute to a soldier, unnamed, who died this past week in Afghanistan.
There was the usual formula - "Profound condolences- doing his duty ... we owe him a deep debt of gratitude."
The phrases were uttered with attempted solemnity, but it sounded little better than routine.
Actor Blair relished changing the cadence subtly every week.
He saw it as a professional challenge to his thespian talents.
Young Cameron always manages somehow to produce a fresh note of salute, too.
What is the knack? Why is this sort of thing so damnably hard?
Why can public schoolboys do it, yet not this almost equally privileged son of the Manse?
There was little frisson in the less than full Chamber.
There was sparse sense, as the weary figure at the box plodded about his business, of "there treads the colossus" or even "there steps the bounder".
He and his opponent spent the first nine minutes talking about Burma.
The Chamber fell so silent that a swallow's wings could have been heard beating above.
This once big figure looked wan. A small element of pity could maybe be discerned in the gaze of some of the Labour women sitting behind him.
A few eyes watched him with curiosity, perhaps wondering what flagellatory regrets might be dancing some crazed hornpipe inside his Presbyterian head.
After Burma there was a tiny flare-up of aggro when the Tory Cameron raised today's election in Crewe.
"Why hasn't he had the courage to go to Crewe and Nantwich?" said Cameron.
"Hasn't he just put himself in his bunker?"
Ah, the bunker. What a depressing place it must be.
Few Labour MPs leapt up to try to put questions. I could see only two. Cabinet colleagues were light on the ground.
The only moment of levity was when the Prime Minster produced a strange pronunciation of 'al Qaeda'. MPs laughed at him.
He could not work out why.
Come the end, he left the Chamber without cheers. He was not even accompanied by the usual phalanx of flunkeys and twittering Osrics.
He left utterly alone, a sorry figure seemingly friendless.
Such is the state of Gordon Brown less than a year into his premiership. Such is the state of Labour.
He saw it as a professional challenge to his thespian talents. Young Cameron always manages somehow to produce a fresh note of salute, too.
What is the knack? Why is this sort of thing so damnably hard?
Why can public schoolboys do it, yet not this almost equally privileged son of the Manse?
There was little frisson in the less than full Chamber.
There was sparse sense, as the weary figure at the box plodded about his business, of "there treads the colossus" or even "there steps the bounder".
He and his opponent spent the first nine minutes talking about Burma.
The Chamber fell so silent that a swallow's wings could have been heard beating above.
This once big figure looked wan. A small element of pity could maybe be discerned in the gaze of some of the Labour women sitting behind him.
A few eyes watched him with curiosity, perhaps wondering what flagellatory regrets might be dancing some crazed hornpipe inside his Presbyterian head.
After Burma there was a tiny flare-up of aggro when the Tory Cameron raised today's election in Crewe.
"Why hasn't he had the courage to go to Crewe and Nantwich?" said Cameron.
"Hasn't he just put himself in his bunker?"
Ah, the bunker. What a depressing place it must be.
Few Labour MPs leapt up to try to put questions. I could see only two. Cabinet colleagues were light on the ground.
The only moment of levity was when the Prime Minster produced a strange pronunciation of "al Qaeda".
MPs laughed at him. He could not work out why.
Come the end, he left the Chamber without cheers. He was not even accompanied by the usual phalanx of flunkeys and twittering Osrics.
He left utterly alone, a sorry figure seemingly friendless.
Such is the state of Gordon Brown less than a year into his premiership. Such is the state of Labour.
He saw it as a professional challenge to his thespian talents. Young Cameron always manages somehow to produce a fresh note of salute, too.
What is the knack? Why is this sort of thing so damnably hard?
Why can public schoolboys do it, yet not this almost equally privileged son of the Manse?
There was little frisson in the less than full Chamber.
There was sparse sense, as the weary figure at the box plodded about his business, of "there treads the colossus" or even "there steps the bounder".
He and his opponent spent the first nine minutes talking about Burma.
The Chamber fell so silent that a swallow's wings could have been heard beating above.
This once big figure looked wan. A small element of pity could maybe be discerned in the gaze of some of the Labour women sitting behind him.
A few eyes watched him with curiosity, perhaps wondering what flagellatory regrets might be dancing some crazed hornpipe inside his Presbyterian head.
After Burma there was a tiny flare-up of aggro when the Tory Cameron raised today's election in Crewe.
"Why hasn't he had the courage to go to Crewe and Nantwich?" said Cameron.
"Hasn't he just put himself in his bunker?"
Ah, the bunker. What a depressing place it must be.
Few Labour MPs leapt up to try to put questions. I could see only two. Cabinet colleagues were light on the ground.
The only moment of levity was when the Prime Minster produced a strange pronunciation of "al Qaeda".
MPs laughed at him. He could not work out why.
Come the end, he left the Chamber without cheers. He was not even accompanied by the usual phalanx of flunkeys and twittering Osrics.
He left utterly alone, a sorry figure seemingly friendless.
Such is the state of Gordon Brown less than a year into his premiership. Such is the state of Labour.
He saw it as a professional challenge to his thespian talents. Young Cameron always manages somehow to produce a fresh note of salute, too.
What is the knack? Why is this sort of thing so damnably hard?
Why can public schoolboys do it, yet not this almost equally privileged son of the Manse?
There was little frisson in the less than full Chamber.
There was sparse sense, as the weary figure at the box plodded about his business, of "there treads the colossus" or even "there steps the bounder".
He and his opponent spent the first nine minutes talking about Burma.
The Chamber fell so silent that a swallow's wings could have been heard beating above.
This once big figure looked wan. A small element of pity could maybe be discerned in the gaze of some of the Labour women sitting behind him.
A few eyes watched him with curiosity, perhaps wondering what flagellatory regrets might be dancing some crazed hornpipe inside his Presbyterian head.
After Burma there was a tiny flare-up of aggro when the Tory Cameron raised today's election in Crewe.
"Why hasn't he had the courage to go to Crewe and Nantwich?" said Cameron.
"Hasn't he just put himself in his bunker?"
Ah, the bunker. What a depressing place it must be.
Few Labour MPs leapt up to try to put questions. I could see only two. Cabinet colleagues were light on the ground.
The only moment of levity was when the Prime Minster produced a strange pronunciation of "al Qaeda".
MPs laughed at him. He could not work out why.
Come the end, he left the Chamber without cheers. He was not even accompanied by the usual phalanx of flunkeys and twittering Osrics.
He left utterly alone, a sorry figure seemingly friendless.
Such is the state of Gordon Brown less than a year into his premiership. Such is the state of Labour.
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