IT was all going so well.

Damian Green, the human sponge, standing in at PMQs for Mother Theresa, who was busy curtseying in the direction of HRH King Felipe, was successfully absorbing all the barbs that Labour’s Emily Thornberry could throw at him.

ET, substituting for Jezza, was trying too hard. She noted how DG was the 16th member of the Tory Party to stand at the despatch box for PMQs since 1997, challenging him to name all the others by the end of the 30-minute session.

With the demeanour of a slow-motion replay, DG quipped that there were many people of both sexes, who had taken PMQs in the Conservative Party “because we elect women leaders”. The Tory berserkers roared their approval.

As the shadow first secretary sought to pin down the first secretary on what a “no deal” on Brexit would look like, DG glowered sedately across the dispatch box and suggested Labour would accept any deal Brussels offered them.

He then quipped: “All I can congratulate Labour on is their consistency. They have been consistently in favour of unilateral disarmament. They don’t only apply that in military matters, they clearly apply in matters of negotiation on Britain’s future prosperity as well.”

ET hit back, saying her Tory opponent clearly had not got the PM’s memo this week on being nice to Labour. “You’re supposed to be building consensus, man!” she insisted to Conservative cackles.

Terrier-like, she continued to press what a “no deal” would look like until finally the human sponge rose unhurriedly and declared how there would be an OBR report on fiscal risks published on Thursday and that “if she can be patient, she will see the report she wants”.

But the attempt to deflate ET backfired as the OBR later tweeted: “Just to be clear, we are NOT assessing 'no deal' and other possible Brexit negotiation outcomes in our Fiscal Risks Report tomorrow.” Oh dear.

But having absorbed the Thornberry barbs, Labour skyscraper Toby Perkins decided to have a go.

The Chesterfield MP pointed out that, on the day after her first anniversary as Tory leader, Mrs May for the first time no longer featured on the front page of the party's website. She had gone, he quipped, "from the next Iron Lady to The Lady Vanishes".

Not bad but the Tory sponge soaked it up and was ready with a riposte, noting how Mr P had form.

“As recently as June last year, he said the leader of the Labour Party was ‘not destined to become Prime Minister,’ and called on him to resign. I suggest that he might want to make peace with his own frontbench before starting to be rude about ours.” And with that, DG sat down, slowly.