IT was pure pantomime.
A bemused Ken Clarke, Minister Without Portfolio, was summoned to answer questions about the Bilderberg summit, a group of powerbrokers drawn from across North America and Europe to a hotel in Watford.
To laughter, old Ken leaned on the despatch box as if leaning against a bar and told MPs: "This is a first for me as I have never answered a question on behalf of a private organisation for which the Government has no responsibility."
Declaring an interest – he is on Bilderberg's organising committee – the MWP explained how those who attended came from the world of politics, academia and journalism to have a private chat about this, that and the future of the planet.
As he rambled on and people's laughter grew, he barked: "Well, I'm trying to guess why on earth people are asking a parliamentary question about this."
The culprit was leftie Michael Meacher, who was annoyed a secret "anti-democratic cabal" had met behind closed doors to determine the future of the capitalist West.
Old Ken, staring Mr Meacher in the eye, quipped that if the Labour MP found "something deeply disturbing in all this, I would only advise he finds different people to exchange tweets with".
Mr M cited some of the terrible types of anti-democrats who had attended Bilderberg.
The Tory frontbench fell about as one of them was none other than Ed Balls, the Shadow Chancellor, sitting a row or two down and smirking broadly.
Mr M insisted the cabal had come together to "concert their plans" for western capitalism and MPs had a duty to hold them to account. So there.
Old Ken, exasperated, pointed out how no decisions could ever be made because of the diverse attendees, who included his old adversary Peter Mandelson.
"This is utter nonsense," declared Old Ken, who insisted the Coalition was, by a street, the most transparent Government he had ever been in.
John Bercow, the Commons Speaker, stood up and upbraided the MWP for referring to Mandy as Peter. "I assume he was referring to no less a figure as Lord Mandelson of Foy."
Old Ken creaked up once more and, in apology, said: "We all attend extremely informally."
To laughter, the Speaker responded: "I had thought that he realised I was gently teasing him."
What fun.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article