Liz Truss’s first PMQs felt like a dress rehearsal

That felt like a dress rehearsal. Liz Truss sailed through her first PMQs which will probably be her easiest. It may turn out to have been her best. When she arrived, the House burst into ecstasies of joy as if she’d just found the cure for malaria, solved the Jack the Ripper case and liberated Hong Kong.

The questions lobbed at her were as soft as pizza dough, and each was prefixed with a note of congratulation and welcome. The mood was warm enough even to thaw the frost that covers Theresa May. Suspending her sulk for a moment she made an ironic observation. ‘Why does she think it is that all three female prime ministers have been Conservative?’

Liz improvised. ‘There doesn’t seem to be the ability in the Labour party to find a female leader. Or a leader who doesn’t come from north London.’ Not bad. That was her best moment. To defend herself, she’d come with promises for the future and excuses for the past. She claimed that the energy crisis was caused by ‘Putin’s war’ and by Labour’s failure to go nuclear while in office. Nothing to do with the Tories, then. Liz’s selective amnesia helped the Labour leader.

‘She nodded through every decision that got us into this mess,’ said Keir Starmer, ‘and now she says how terrible it is.’ He asked her to rule out a windfall tax on Big Oil. When she obliged he accused her of forcing taxpayers to fund profiteers. This is a caricature he loves to paint: smug lazy Tories handing billions to fatcats while shivering British kiddywinks go to sleep in damp, unheated hovels. And Starmer made it stick today. His tone of icy bemusement on behalf of helpless wage slaves gave him a real sense of moral authority. Which must be a novelty for him. When he faced Boris’s colourful and erudite clowning he seemed a grey, petulant, small-minded scold. But Liz is a weak orator and Starmer outclassed her without trying. She made him look poised, thoughtful and statesmanlike. He may well duff her up every week, but it’s too early to say because this was a party not a debate.

Peter Bottomley said he’d asked a question at PMQs in July and Boris had promised a meeting with the housing minister. ‘But,’ said Bottomley, ‘he resigned 17 minutes after hearing that’. Liz fluffed her reply but it scarcely mattered. Her ‘mind-the-gap’ style is not easy to warm to. She emphasises odd words and she uses a halting, barking tone as if trying to catch the attention of kids at the back who are texting. Her turn of phrase is banal. She relies on slogans that seem as stale as bottled fog.

‘A positive future… get Britain moving… high-skill high-wage jobs… investment across the country...’ Her clothes were a success. A tunic of Thatcherite blue, naturally. A lapel badge showing the flags of the UK and Ukraine fused together like conjoined twins. Her white shirt was accented with ruff-like frills at the collar and cuffs. An Elizabethan touch which was doubtless a pun on her name.

Throughout the session, there were smiles all around the chamber. And not just on the faces of the new cabinet of Liz trusties. Labour backbenchers were grinning from ear to ear as well. Especially the women. The Age of Truss makes the election of another male Labour leader an impossibility. Today the dreams of Andy Burnham vanished in a puff of Liz.