Andrew Gimson’s PMQs sketch: “Is everything OK, Prime Minister?”

Sir Keir Starmer sounded wittier and looked far happier than he usually does, and also more dangerous.

Andrew Gimson’s PMQs speech: Johnson showed fighting spirit, but many of his troops stayed away

The Prime Minister engaged in demeaning exchanges with the Leader of the Opposition, but will be worried by a lack of support on his own side.

Profile: COP26’s Alok Sharma, who put himself on the map by inadvertently shedding tears in Glasgow

The President of COP26 is suddenly so well-known that he attracts criticism as well as admiration, and interest in his roots as an admirer of Thatcher.

Barwell’s memoir. The more conscientious he becomes, the less illuminating this book is

A problem throughout is that he was there, but is too well-behaved to tell us what he heard.

Andrew Gimson’s Commons sketch: “Sometimes to do the right thing one has to accept a degree of opprobrium”

Many MPs feel deeply unhappy about how the Paterson case has been handled by the Commissioner.

Profile: Emmanuel Macron, grandstander over fishing. A campaigner of genius – but not a man to be taken literally.

If Peter Sellers were still around, he could play the President to perfection, as a politician who is all at once cunning, witty, naive and triumphant.

What an absurd displacement activity this sanctimonious babbling about the climate has become

The British are deluged with sanctimonious propaganda about the need to save the planet, and China goes on burning coal.

Andrew Gimson’s Budget sketch: Everything is for the best in the best of all possible public sectors

To appreciate the full wonder of this Budget it is necessary, as the Chancellor said, to be an optimist.

Conservative backbenchers will have four days to express any worries they may have about the Budget

Many Tories are alarmed by the tax rises recently announced by the Government, and will be looking for reassurance from Sunak.

Andrew Mitchell’s entertaining memoir shows the British Establishment riven by dissent

The author recounts how, despite the opposition of John Major and Conservative MEPs, he kept Boris Johnson on the candidates’ list.

Profile: Stanley Johnson. A serious environmentalist who, as COP26 looms, has at last made a convert of his son

His compulsion to tell jokes distracts attention from more than half a century of campaigning to save the planet.

Andrew Gimson’s PMQs sketch: Free speech is threatened by sanctimony as well as by extremism

The Leader of the Opposition had forgotten that it is his duty to oppose, and sought instead to impose a high moral tone.

Profile: Nadine Dorries, Johnson loyalist. A splash of colour amidst a grey landscape. And promoted by him for precisely that reason.

She shares with him the ability to throw opponents off balance – and a commitment to levelling up.

Andrew Gimson’s Conference sketch: Johnson brings Merry England politics to the big stage

But what will be remembered from this brilliant comic performance in which he asserted his personal primacy? Not much, perhaps.

The Foreign Secretary follows a key tenet of Johnsonism, which is to tell jokes on occasions once thought too serious

When asked who the best ever holder of her office was, she named the present Prime Minister.