George Galloway is such a rare presence in the Commons chamber since his surprise re-election last year that when he popped up at PMQs one Labour wag shouted "who is he?"
That was, it has to be said, after the boos had died down.
Sarcastic the question may have been, but the Prime Minister said that he thought he knew the answer. After the Respect MP had asked about the differences in the UK's attitudes towards Mali and Syria, the Prime Minister described Mr Galloway as a friend to despots everywhere.
"Wherever there is a brutal Arab dictator in the world, he will have the support of the honourable gentleman," he told the Bradford West MP. While Mr Galloway's face gave away little expression to that putdown, it appeared that he was not done in the chamber.
After PMQs he rose to express a concern about the workings of the mother of all parliaments. He was worried that the House of Commons was not, well, common enough. He raised a point of order to query with the speaker John Bercow over a description of a Scottish MP, John Thurso.
Lord Thurso, to give him one of his titles, is the fifth generation of the Sinclair family to represent the Caithness area in the House of Commons. But it was not that to which Mr Galloway objected. It was the fact that in a debate the day before he had been described as a "noble" member of the house.
Mr Galloway was reassured by the Speaker that the phrase was meant to suggest distinguished, not that the person concerned was a member of the aristocracy.
But Mr Speaker seemed to miss a trick to remind MPs of Lord Thurso's other title and Danny Alexander's joke to the LibDem party conference in Brighton last year, amid accusations a senior Tory had called police officers "plebs". Politicians spent the week lining up to describe themselves too as "plebs" and activists bought so many badges spelling out the same message that they sold out from conference stalls.
The LibDem Chief Treasury Secretary capitalised on the furore to begin his speech to delegates with the words, "Fellow plebs, Viscount Thurso".
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