The Sketch: Rank-and-file Tories show their leader how to be an effective opposition

All parliamentary life was there. David Blunkett had his nose bitten by Ann Widdecombe; Glenda Jackson pummelled the front bench; and rising above their present difficulties, the Tories turned in their best effort in a year.

Their leader may be about to be convicted of crimes against democracy but the rank and file achieved that thing they often talk about: Holding the Executive to Account.

Did you know the sum of money needed to fund fully police pensions is £25bn. Imagine! Tim Boswell noted that his local authority had put up the police precept by 25 per cent two years in a row. Elfyd Llwyd said up to 60 per cent of all police funding went on pensions. So public service "investment" drains into the sand while crime rises (believe nothing to the contrary).

Humfrey Malins asked: "Will the Government ever remove the quarter-of-a-million asylum-seekers that should have been removed but haven't been?"

A serious question, which demands an answer; Mr Blunkett derided it. "The figures he has picked out of the air are hypothetical!" he said. But of course he hadn't and they aren't. Ann Widdecombe had asked what target had been set for removing asylum-seekers (it is the most abject failure of this Government to remove anyone at all). Oh, lots, the Home Secretary indicated. Like the most fearsome sort of lady novelist, Miss Widdecombe then asked the old brute whether he was aware his answer was both evasive and pathetic (Tory cheers).

"Why was the much trumpeted target of 30,000 removals a year not feasible? Was it not a nonsense from the start!" she demanded. A sham! A grab for headline! (Louder cheers.) She has never screeched to such good effect.

Simon Hughes noted that the largest group of refugees these days is from Iraq. Given that Tony Blair is making a moral case for war in Iraq, he asked, don't we have a moral responsibility to those fleeing Saddam Hussein? Beverley Hughes said they were all Kurds and there was no reason why they shouldn't be returned.

Charles Hendry asked the same minister if it was true the French, having closed Sangatte, were building another 1,000-bed refugee camp in the same place. Ms Hughes confirmed the report in her elliptical Home Office way. She said: "It is absolutely untrue."

Oliver Letwin (does he have the substance, the sense, the survival skills to resist the call of leadership?) asked one of his leisurely questions: Considering the Prime Minister's pledge to halve the number of asylum-seekers by September, would the minister guarantee not to manipulate the statistics by giving all refugees work permits?

Ms Hughes must have been so shaken by this brilliant idea that she could hardly find words to answer. Bubble, babble and booble, she blithered. Those who say Ms Hughes is useless are both cruel and wrong. Her great work is to help the Government achieve onerous diversity targets.

When critics accuse the Government of having discriminated against stumbling no-hopers who cough up popcorn by way of dispatch box replies, they say: "But you are mistaken. Consider Beverley Hughes."

She is also, incidentally, essential to the introduction of identity cards and the deportation of Kurds.

Simoncarr75@hotmail.com