AN ODD thing happened at PMQs today.

The Tories had apparently come up with a ripping wheeze in order to make sure Nadine Dorries was called to ask a question about Smeargate. So they decided that, until Nadine was called, none of her colleagues would attempt to “catch the Speaker’s eye” by standing up between questions.

And so it transpired that, when the Speaker came to choose someone from the Tory benches, only Nadine was standing. So of course he called her.

I don’t know if perhaps she was feeling the pressure of the spotlight, but she did not shine. She asked the Prime Minister if he would “say sorry for what happened”. This did not prove the bear trap that the opposition clearly had hoped it would be and Gordon’s response was confident and appropriate.

Their standard bearer having had her moment, the Tory legions resumed the customary practice of the eager back bencher known in parliamentary terms as “bobbing up and down”.

However they had not anticipated Mr Speaker’s determination to uphold the rules and conventions of the House. And one of those conventions is that if you want to get called at PMQs, you need to start standing at the very start. If you wait until even a few minutes in, you reticence will be interpreted as a sign of disrespect to the House and it’s unlikely you’ll get called.

And so it proved today. Labour and Liberal members cheered as the Speaker deliberately avoided calling Tories who had colluded in their little scheme. Not a single other Tory was called from the floor. Sir Peter Tapsell would have been called had we got far enough down the order paper (he was number 14) but we didn’t.

I suspect that those Tories who actually wanted to raise an important issue, perhaps about their own constituencies, might not be so keen to play such silly games with the Chamber in future.