The real Treasury question: where's Nadine Dorries?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/apr/25/nadine-dorries-simon-hoggart-sketch

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On Monday Nadine Dorries, the Tory MP for Mid Bedfordshire, described the prime minister and the chancellor as "two arrogant posh boys who show no remorse, no contrition". On Tuesday Dorries tried to explain. Naturally she made things a little worse. Her words were not aimed at Cameron and Osborne personally, but at the "elite circle" in No 10 who surround the prime minister. (I wasn't attacking the king, just the courtiers around him, has always been the get-out for people who have it in for the top man.) So we were really looking forward to her appearance at Treasury questions when one of those arrogant posh boys – George Osborne – would be answering her question number six, about interest rates.

Labour MPs were thrilled. But there was no sign of her. She is not a shrinking flower; given the opportunity to sound off anywhere – even on Mid Beds hospital radio, never mind the Commons – she leaps up like a hyperactive hamster onto a wheel. Question five came, followed by question seven. Nadine had become a non-person. Or perhaps she resembled the Nadine in Chuck Berry's song of the same name: "Seems like every time I see you darling you got something else to do".

I was also reminded of the last chapter of Evelyn Waugh's A Handful Of Dust, titled The Man Who Liked Dickens. An explorer, lost in the Amazon jungle, is obliged to read the works of Dickens over and over to a crazed settler. Once he wakes from a drugged sleep to discover that a search party had come looking for him, but were shown his grave. He is forced to resume reading Dickens.

Tory whip: Why don't you join me for a drink, Nadine?

Nadine: No time, I'm afraid. I have to ask the chancellor a poser about interest rates.

Whip: Oh, there's plenty of time. Try some of this – it will buck you up!

Nadine: It tastes a little odd. Are you sure there is time?

Whip: Of course, we'll have you in the Chamber in a trice …

So given the many mishaps of his budget, Osborne had an easy ride. Even Ed Balls, who ran the London marathon two days before, seemed lacklustre, like the world's laziest football fan, barely able to screech abuse at the ref.

Soon afterwards, news filtered into the Commons about James Murdoch's evidence to the Leveson inquiry, and Murdoch's suggestion that Jeremy Hunt had operated a secret back channel for the family firm while they were trying to gain complete control of BSkyB. Harriet Harman demanded Hunt's resignation. Other Labour MPs found ways of accusing him of fibbing, without actually saying he was a liar, since that's not allowed. (What was it that Jim Naughtie called the culture secretary?)

Labour MPs can hardly wait for prime minister's questions. The only question is, as the omnishambles becomes an omnimarathon, each disaster overlapping the last, will there be some other catastrophe before lunchtime? And will Nadine finally turn up, looking a little dazed?