Well, here we are: more pearls before swine. Unappreciated, ignored, insulted, our poor MPs often deliver great lines that nobody notices, unless picked up by sketch writers grateful for scraps.

Mind you, you’d be pushed to describe Keir Starmer’s bons mots at Prime Minister’s Questions as pearls. Indeed, the grey suits of broadcasting quickly branded his jokes laboured. There’s a bon mot right there.

Before coming to the Labour leader’s pearls, though, the comedy half-hour that is Scottish Questions saw the peculiar situation highlighted whereby England wants fewer migrants and gets millions, while Scotland wants more migrants and gets few.

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Tommy Sheppard, the SNP’s “Scotland Spokesperson” (how imaginative of Scottish Nationalists to have one such) wanted work permits devolved, while colleague Deirdre Brock lamented the lack of chefs coming to Scotia and pleaded with the Government to “stop destroying Scotland's economy in the name of a purist Brexit ideology”.

Scottish Secretary Alister “Union” Jack said if taxes were lower in Scotland, more migrants might come. As for Ms Brock, she “lives in a parallel universe”, an accurate enough description of Scotland’s position within the UK.

After that lukewarm warm-up, the heated exchanges of PMQs saw Sir Keir polish a pearl with the observation that Tory PM Rishi Sunak had spent the week “arguing about an ancient relic” – already we knew a well-chewed punchline was about to be vomited forth – “that only a tiny minority of the UK British public have an interest in. But that’s enough about the – here it comes; have you guessed it? – “Tory Party.” Boom, so to say, boom.

As you’ll have guessed, “ancient relic” was a reference to the ongoing row about the Elgin Marbles, which had seen Mr Sunak summarily cancel a meeting in London with Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis. This was all Greek to Mr Starmer, who hollered: “Never mind the British Museum. It’s the Prime Minister who’s obviously lost his marbles.” Wee pearl about marbles there.

Instead of taking the opportunity to discuss such matters as security and immigration, Rishi had “tried to humiliate” the Greek by cancelling at the last minute. “Why such small politics, Prime Minister?”

Drawing himself up to his full 5ft 6in, Mr Sunak said his Greek counterpart’s tea was oot – paraphrasing here – when it became clear Monsieur Mitsotakis was going “to grandstand and re-litigate issues of the past”.

While Keir said Rishi had dug himself into a hole, the PM dug into ancient history when he unearthed a quote “from a pushy, young shadow immigration minister who … told this House that limits on skilled migrants … are a form of economic vandalism”. Oh dear. “It will come as no surprise to anybody” – correct, it didn’t – “that it was him.” Meaning Sir K.

The Labour leader said the PM was “lost in La-La Land” – thus the standard of debate, readers – and flung forth another pearl: “It is ironic that he’s suddenly taken such a keen interest in Greek culture when he’s clearly become the man with the reverse Midas touch.” Reverse comedy gold, this.

Stephen Flynn, SNP Westminster leader, put a saccharin smile on nobody’s face with this seasonal tale: “In good news for kids this morning, it was snowing in Aberdeen and, when they looked out of the kitchen window, they would have been filled with delight.”

For Scots, though, every silver lining has a cloud. Stephen went on: “But, for their parents, many of them who looked out the kitchen window this morning would have been filled with [in Private Frazer tone] drrread!”

This was because they couldn’t afford their energy bills, all while “Scotland produces six times more gas than we consume”. The SNP are clearly onto something with this.

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Earlier in proceedings, the SNP’s Gavin Newlands had pointed out that, last year, Scotland exported 19 trillion watt hours of electricity worth £4 billion to the UK grid. Yet, he said, “not only do Scottish generators pay the highest grid connections in Europe, Scots pay amongst the highest standing charges whilst London is by far the lowest”.

Scots switch their heating and lighting on much earlier and off much later than the south of England, said Gavin, adding: “So should Scotland be forced to shiver in the dark this winter to subsidise the richest part of the UK?” Doozy!

Mr Sunak countered by describing an energy grid integrated like the Union, with folk in every part of Britain benefitting equally. Similarly, while producing more energy, Scotland doubtless benefits from resources produced in other parts of the UK, such as garden gnomes from the south-east of England. Thus, every lucky Briton is happy. Hooray!