It was a strange Question Time for it was Tony Blair’s last one before he announces (officially) that he is going. This is the first of many lasts, of course, until he does his absolutely final last one (for ever and ever, amen). Indeed, the man is going to have so many lasts that he would put a cobbler to shame.

But, still, it was special yesterday. Maybe that’s why so many people came. Even Karl Marx was there, though he’s not really new Labour at all. And — even more unusually — Gordon Brown. The whole event had a ghostly theme to it. “This is the Government of the living dead!” screamed David Cameron, the Tory leader. “Why do we have to put up with even more paralysis?”

Tony Blair threw back his head and laughed at that. No one else on the Labour front bench did. Their faces hardly moved. Facial paralysis is a real possibility: indeed they may have had a Botox party to celebrate this first of the last PMQs. Why not? For these are the days of suspended animation and no one knows if they are alive or dead: they might as well party.

Mr Cameron is most definitely alive, much to Labour’s deep irritation. Yesterday Dave went on the attack about the Home Office split. John Reid sat there, glowering and jerking his head to one side. He has already preresigned, of course. I didn’t even know you could do that, but this is how postmodernist politics works. Anyway, he’s leaving because he can’t stand Gordon Brown (oops, sorry, loves him so much). Yesterday they sat next to each other, making the careful conversation of a couple on the brink of divorce.

Blair casts himself as EU president candidate

Speaking on French TV, Tony Blair sang the praises of the EU and sketched his agenda for its future, all in fluent French

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“If splitting the Home Office is such a good idea, why isn’t the Home Secretary hanging around to see it through?” taunted Dave.

“I am! I am!” mouthed John Reid, though, of course, he isn’t.

Dave was relentless. He taunted the Foreign Secretary and the Health Secretary. How can they be taken seriously when they were for the chop? He pilloried Lord Falconer of Thoroton, the Justice Minister. “He was pathetically pleading for his job on the radio this morning. Everybody knows he’s not going to last five minutes!”

He looked over at Gordo. “Why does the country have to put up with another seven weeks of paralysis?” shouted Dave. “Everybody knows who the next Labour leader is and, thank God, he’s got out of his blacked-out limo and come to the House of Commons.”

This brought screams of laughter. Gordo looked quite confused at the reference to “blacked-out limo”. Could it be that Macavity does not know how sinister his car is?

All of this seemed to inspire Mr Blair, who came back with his own comedy routine. He quoted from a speech made this week by the Tory brainbox Oliver Letwin. Mr Blair noted the title in tones of incredulity: “Is Cameron Conservatism Just a Set of Attitudes or Is It a Political Theory?” This had Labour MPs screeching. Mr Letwin responded by squawking and laughing at the same time.

Mr Blair quoted a particularly excruciating passage. “Cameron conservatism is an attempt to shift the theory of the State from a provision-based paradigm to a framework-based paradigm.”

Mr Letwin nodded, but it was mayhem in the Chamber. “More! More!” shouted Labour MPs.

Mr Blair crowed: “And he concludes with the words, ‘It all goes back to Marx’.” He paused and, with perfect timing, noted: “That’s Groucho I assume!”

Even Karl (he was sitting with the Independents) smiled at that.

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