The Sketch: Braddocks gassed and the Speaker slumped in the Commons necropolis

Even by the standards of this extraordinary place that was the politics of the necropolis.

It was Scottish questions. The only question is: why not give Scotland full independence and send all these gargling uplanders north of the border? We're just not interested in their obscure tribal rites, and we're not to be blamed for that: it's their fault.

Huge Bessie Braddock types gassing on through the useless afternoon. Huge Bessie Braddock gasbags on and on they afternooned. Gassy Braddocks hugely afternooning, saying the same things over and over again with the slightest variations as they Brassy Beddocked the unintelligible noofternan.

Jacqui Lait congratulated someone on their fourth wedding anniversary. In the House of Commons! The level of debate rose slightly as she did so.

Even the slumped old todger in the Speaker's chair realised something was wrong. A rush of blood jerked him erect. He told four of the worst offenders just to bloody well shut up and sit down. But then he told Alex Salmond to shut up. Michael Martin should never tell his intellectual superiors to shut up.

Then the Advocate General rose for her five minutes. Lynda Clark is an adornment to her profession but not an asset to it. Her answers alternate between It's Not My Job and I Don't Know, and this allows her to get through four questions in five minutes. That's something, I suppose. She was asked about a set of session cases sent to London for a photo opportunity, then repacked and sent back to Edinburgh. She said: "If that was a photo opportunity involving me I have no knowledge of it." No, nor of anything else.

Hello Lord Chancellor's Department. This, like the previous two departments, is an all-woman show. Good grief, what shameful collaborators they are in the West's War Against Narcolepsy.

Graham Brady asked about the impact of the Data Protection Act on hospital chaplaincy.

This was Yvette Cooper's first question in her new post. She has been savagely demoted (or as Downing Street puts it "shifted sideways") perhaps as penalty for beating up that communitarian Tony Blair had brought over from America. She gave him a terrific rollicking in Number 10. I hope it was worth it.

Ms Cooper told us that hospital chaplains provided a vital service to many thousands in very severe need. In response to the supplementary she told us that hospital chaplains gave vital spiritual support and care to patients. We were so numb it was hard to say why this sounded familiar.

She had a further point to make. That the Data Protection Act didn't prevent hospitals revealing the religion of patients providing consent had been gained. Consent was an important principle in these matters. It enabled hospital chaplains to provide vital support. And the Patient Information Advisory Group was generating a new code of practice for best practice to be disseminated.

It's only been in the past couple of days that we've realised that, thanks to David Blunkett's new Act, a very wide variety of bureaucrats now have access to our e-mail and phone records. It's an amazing achievement to make data protection as boring as the House managed yesterday. Well done everyone involved.

simoncarr75@hotmail.com