Political column Thursday
She's away.
And you know what happens when She's away. We get to see some mice.
Where was Theresa The Appeaser, as Nigel Farage has dubbed her?
She's gone to China. For a holiday. Well, not for a holiday exactly, but it will seem like a holiday.
Hard-nosed, unreasonable, intransigent people who are difficult to deal with - at least she won't have to deal with that in China. They will be pussycats compared to the EU gang, not to mention the rabble at Westminster.
Dictators of minor countries travel abroad with trepidation, because as soon as they set foot away from home turf there's a coup.
It is an insult to Theresa May's leadership that her political opponents, who are mostly in her own party, are now so unafraid of her that they won't even confer on her the honour of being stabbed in the back.
In any event, it was The B Team on display at Prime Minister's Questions, giving the deputies of Mrs May and Jeremy Corbyn a chance to shine and make a name for themselves.
Enter David Lidington. Who? You know, David Lidington, Minister for the Cabinet Office. Go on David, make a name for yourself.
Facing him was Emily Thornberry, the Shadow Foreign Secretary.
It was, at least, a change from the May-Corbyn tit-for-tat over the NHS, with Thornberry moving from increasing political representation of women (she is, she said, the only Emily elected to the House since 1918) to a call to lower the voting age to 16.
The First Emily In The House Since 1918 gives the impression of being pleased with herself, and got a fair amount of barracking.
"I'm sure it will not have escaped public notice, and it is rather a sad irony, that when a woman is addressing the House quite a lot of noisy, boorish, and in one case rather stupid individual are trying to shout the right honourable lady down. Cut it out!" said the Speaker, John Bercow.
TFEITHS 1918: "There is no logical principled objection to votes under 16... They are not the coalition of chaos, Mr Speaker. They're the coalition of cavemen!"
There were no grunts of agreement from the Tory benches.
"She ought to grow up try and treat this subject with a greater degree of seriousness," said Mr Lidington.
Two of the questions later had direct local interest.
Richard Burden (Labour, Northfield) drew attention to an article in The Economist which, he told the House, says the hostile takeover bid of GKN by Melrose "casts doubt not only on the survival of GKN, Britain's third largest independent aerospace and defence firm, but on much of the rest of industry too."
Where national security issues were involved, ministers had the power to intervene. Would they do so in this case?
Mr Lidington said ministers in the defence and business departments would be monitoring things, but it would be wrong for him to speculate in detail.
Shrewsbury & Atcham MP Daniel Kawczynski said Shropshire Council was facing a black hole of £10 million in its budget because of adult social care costs.
"What is the message I should take back to the leader of my council?"
"Vote Labour!" came a cry from the opposition benches.
