Donald Macintyre's Sketch: Yet another unstoppable committee victory for Theresa the Magnificent

When you’ve appeared 16 times before the Home Affairs Committee during your 1,770 days as Home Secretary (figures courtesy of statistics-crazed Labour committee chairman Keith Vaz) there’s not much you can’t handle. But there are irritations, most of them male.

Labour’s Ian Austin obstreperously backed colleague Paul Flynn who had pointed out that there were 439 asylum-seekers in his (Newport) constituency and only two in Theresa May’s (Maidenhead) one. Was the distribution fair, asked Austin. “It’s reasonable,” said May. “Is it fair?” “It’s reasonable.” This could have gone on for hours, a kind of recitatif duet, aiding restful sleep.

Unfortunately Vaz called Austin to order. As he did when Austin also went over the top on why she had not banned the Islamic organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir when David Cameron had personally said he would. “Prime Ministers do not determine which groups are proscribed in this country,” said Theresa the Magnificent. “The Home Secretary determines it on the basis of legal criteria.” It was “quite obvious”, she suggested witheringly, that Austin thought Prime Ministers could simply do what they want.

Or would-be Prime Ministers. Asked about the bar on arch-rival Boris Johnson’s using his rashly purchased £220,000 worth of water cannon, she didn’t think the necessary super-exhaustive studies would be completed before the election. And if they gave the thumbs down, that would be a problem for “the mayor or his successor”.

Meanwhile, she was coyness personified on the pay for Judge Lowell Goddard, now heading the child abuse inquiry. All would be known “in due course”. Vaz said he felt “let down” by her reticence, since the judge had been “examined by this committee”.

The relevance of this was not obvious. But unless someone stumps up the figure soon, people will be speculating 20 grand a day and a first-class Air New Zealand flight home every weekend.