They had come to watch a serious debate at PMQs but up in the Strangers’ Gallery yesterday you could see jaws dropping as members of the public witnessed a pantomime – and not one of those jovial, family-friendly ones either.

The 35-minute-long torture was accompanied by hysterical laughter, shouting and groaning, making our politicians seem out-of-touch and irrational.

It felt cheap, embarrassing – and most of all grubby. You wanted to run towards the nearest sink, give your hands a thorough pumice and then blow the full-time whistle.

Partygate dominated Sir Keir Starmer's questions yesterday during a rowdy Prime Minister's Questions

Yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Questions was dominated by Partygate. 

Starmer made great hay over comments the Prime Minister had reportedly made the previous evening to his MPs about the Archbishop of Canterbury¿s criticism of the scheme to send asylum seekers to Rwanda

Starmer made great hay over comments the Prime Minister had reportedly made the previous evening to his MPs about the Archbishop of Canterbury’s criticism of the scheme to send asylum seekers to Rwanda

As the session ended, Boris trundled off to pack an overnight bag for his visit to India, pictured his former chief adviser Dominic Cummings

Boris, his ex-chief adviser Dominic Cummings, left the session to go pack his overnight bag and head off for India.

Sir Keir starmer once more focused his attention on Partygate. For the second day running, we endured a sanctimonious sermon on the PM’s fixed penalty notice. More of the same and Sir Keir could be labeled a bore.

Starmer made great hay over comments the Prime Minister had reportedly made the previous evening to his MPs about the Archbishop of Canterbury’s criticism of the scheme to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.

Boris had ‘slandered’ the Archbishop, apparently, which was a lawyer’s way of saying he had disagreed with him.

The Prime Minister had also made disparaging remarks about the BBC’s coverage. Boris dislikes BBC, shocker! Next up, Sir Keir is going to reveal that Boris hates the BBC.

Boris huffed and stomped his foot and urged his opponent to ‘come orf it!’ He accused Labour’s leader of living in a ‘Doctor Who time warp’ and being a ‘Corbynista in an Islington suit’. Oh and he had a ‘tiny mind’ as well. This may have been the most brutal of all their interactions to this point.

Soon, the rest of Starmer’s party was following in behind, issuing demands for the PM to resign.

‘When will he go?’ demanded Liz Twist (Lab, Blaydon). ‘We want him gone!’ cried Rachel Hopkins (Lab, Luton S). The pressing issues of schools, hospitals and fuel prices as well as the current situation in Ukraine were willfully ignored.

Ambience in the room was murky. The Government’s deputy chief whip Chris Pincher, who likes to stand watch beside the Speaker’s chair, got his weekly rollicking from Sir Lindsay Hoyle for making smart alec remarks.

So too did Starmer’s pre-programmed mini-me, health spokesman Wes Streeting, who is only too happy to make a spectacle of himself.

Meanwhile, the Government’s frontbench swayed with indifference. Occasionally, when Labour made another accusation about the PM’s integrity, chief whip Chris Heaton-Harris would gesticulate toward the chair the way football players do when demanding a penalty.

Liz Truss looked bored. Rishi Sunak, predictably, had already snubbed it to America.

At one point, James Murray (Lab, Ealing N) made a jibe about the Chancellor’s tax arrangements that momentarily sent one of the clerks into a procedural tizzy.

The Grandstanders waited in line for their turn. Plaid Cymru’s Liz Saville Roberts asked the PM if he would support a ‘lying in politics bill’, which would see politicians banned from being ‘wilfully misleading’.

It was obvious that she felt elated to have the one in.

And before she sat down, I’m not sure she didn’t shoot Boris a matador’s swish of the hips.

An accusation by Richard Thomson (SNP, Gordon) that Mr Johnson was a ‘Pinocchio Prime Minister’ sent the clerks into another spin.

Can you do that in Parliament After much deliberation, Sir Lindsay decided not to.

‘No, Pinocchio is not acceptable,’ Sir Lindsay announced matter-of-factly. Our descendants will look at these transcripts with puzzlement in the centuries ahead.

Boris left the session to go to India to get his overnight bag.

It is possible that he will find Delhi’s climate to be more pleasant than Westminster. The intensity of the political debate will however almost certainly rise.