Politics: The Sketch: Pinochet overshadowed by the great dog-kicking scandal

THE HOME Secretary was boasting about his box-office returns yesterday; on a recent wet night in King's Lynn, he told the House, "700 good citizens of King's Lynn turned up to hear me". The House gave him an "ooh" of approval. Who said the great days of the public meeting were dead? But Mr Straw had more to boast about: "And, Madame Speaker," he continued, "they stayed to the end!".

One can understand his satisfaction: his popular one-man showhad obviously gone down well with the audience. But the raw statistic probably needs a bit of regional adjustment. After all, this area of Norfolk isn't exactly throbbing with rival entertainment.

I was once unwise enough to attend a Sheringham Summer Rep production of The Canterbury Tales and if I found myself at a loose end again, on an evening when squalls had closed the crazy golf courses, I think I would probably take my chances with the Home Secretary.

On a rainy afternoon in Westminster the turn-out was more modest. On the bill were 35 oral questions and, in most people's minds, one additional one: which of these worthy interrogations could most readily be whittled into a whippy supplementary about General Pinochet?

Question One certainly didn't look very promising, being an inquiry about the publication of evidence about the Hillsborough disaster. True, the General had considerable experience of people who went into football stadiums and never came out again, but no backbencher with any sense was going to risk levity on such a subject.

Besides a certain elegance of form is appreciated by the House - the bull must be turned with grace, not clumsy contortions.

Further down the list there looked to be a couple of more promising opportunities. What plans did Mr Straw have to increase the number of televisions available to prisoners?, for instance. An obvious opening there for a nimble member. Would the Home Secretary not immediately make one available to the Very Important Prisoner currently detained in the London Clinic? If the predictions of his supporters are accurate - that the General would expire in an apoplexy if he became aware that he'd had his collar felt - it might prove the most elegant solution to the embarrassment of his presence.

There were also questions about asylum-seekers and police manpower. But they were too far down the Order of Business. Eric Forth (Con., Bromley and Chislehurt) rose on the second question ("What plans has he to reduce the proportion of early retirements from the police?") to put a supplementary - had the Home Secretary received any requests for early retirement due to the mental stress inflicted on officers who had to arrest the General? There was a groan. This wasn't turning the bull, so much as picking it up with a fork-lift truck and doing a three-point turn.

Peter Viggers (Con., Gosport) didn't fare much better with a follow-up to a question about dodgy police radios in Yorkshire. Would the Home Secretary ensure, he asked, that police were able to maintain contact with the Chilean plane currently waiting on the Tarmac at Brize-Norton? Nothing for that incompetent pass either.

The last best hope looked to be Alan Clark, (Con., Kensington and Chelsea) rising with thunderous purpose on a question about police dog handlers. We should have known it wasn't Pinochet he was interested in. When it comes to secret policemen murdering thousands of people Mr Clark takes the view that it's best to let bygones be bygones; when it comes to constables kicking their dogs in Essex, you could power King's Lynn off the radiant energy of his moral outrage.