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Credit where credit is due. The last few prime minister’s questions have been an exercise in nihilism. The embodiment of existential futility. Questions asked by Kemi Badenoch but not even a pretence by Keir Starmer of answering them. It was like the worst days of Boris Johnson’s time in No 10. We’d have learned more if both leaders had chosen to read out some names from an old 1980s phonebook.

But to everyone’s surprise – not least Starmer’s – this week Keir did make a reasonable fist of listening to Kemi’s questions and giving a reply that was more or less coherent. Well, up to a point. Obviously he didn’t answer the one question that really counted. The one about when the defence investment plan would be published. But you can’t have everything. And, to be fair, it is a tricky one. Both sides of the house know that the UK needs to spend more on defence. Especially now the US seems to have turned into the enemy. But no one can agree on how to pay for it.

So perhaps then it was no surprise that Starmer and the speaker appeared to have a standup row when the chamber was emptying after PMQs. Halfway through one of Keir’s replies to Kemi, Lindsay Hoyle had interrupted the prime minister to observe that it was his duty to answer questions. Not to spend several minutes pointing out the limitations of the Tory party. For Starmer this had been too much. He really had been trying. This was him on best behaviour. And it had been a huge improvement on the last few weeks. And yet still the speaker had chosen to humiliate him. This felt personal. This one will run and run.

It feels like we are in the middle of a phoney war. We all know that Labour and the Tories will be annihilated in the local elections in three weeks time. Both parties consistently poll in the high teens. And yet, weirdly Keir and Kemi look more secure in their jobs than at any point in the last year. Keir because of his handling of the Iran war, Kemi because there is no one very obvious to take her place. And yet hubris lurks in every corner for both of them. The feeling that they are only one move from disaster at any time. They are both safe up until the moment they aren’t. They are living their lives a day at a time. Trying to block out the future.

There again, maybe this was a PMQs that basically played out as both Keir and Kemi had always imagined it would. There were no surprises to be had. No bear traps. No moments of high danger. Rather, it was all somewhat lo-fi. The questions that had to be asked. The answers equally well-rehearsed. Just everyone going through the motions. Kemi couldn’t even be roused to anger or indignation by anything that he said. This was the new, gentler Kemi. Either the mediation or the medication is working a treat. Sign me up.

As she was always going to do, Kemi devoted all of her questions to Lord Robertson – Labour’s former defence secretary and ex-secretary general of Nato – who had spoken out about the present government’s “corrosive complacency” in regard to the UK’s armed forces. Having a Labour grandee to bash the Labour party was too good a gift to pass up. Kemi even went so far as to boast that she had bothered to turn up to a briefing his lordship had given. That would be about the first briefing she has ever attended. Her track record of laziness precedes her.

Keir barely broke sweat. No need to avoid this particular question. One of his staff had already written out the answer. He greatly admired Robertson but respectfully disagreed with him. His job was to keep the UK safe and that was what he had been doing. He had already increased defence spending and would do so again. It was a matter of record that Britain had the fifth largest defence budget in the world. Just a shame we had allowed Gordon Brown to spend so much of it on aircraft carriers to promote jobs in Scotland and that these ships were vulnerable to modern missiles. Who would have guessed?

We then more or less covered the same territory for the next five questions. Only increasingly Kemi seemed underpowered. As if she realised that without Robertson as her human shield she had no protection whatsoever. Starmer wasted no time in going for the jugular. It was all very well the Tories complaining about defence spending when it had been them in government who had hollowed out the armed forces. Labour was merely trying to clear up the mess. And the idea there was a simple trade off between defence and welfare was absurd. This wasn’t a zero sum gain. Besides, it had been the Tories who had trebled welfare spending.

“Don’t worry about what we did,” said Kemi. A sure sign that she was losing the argument. She then had to sit down as Starmer threw her early support for the Iran war back of her. Kemi can’t shake this one off. She has tried the memory wipe and the rewriting of history but the country isn’t fooled. We can all remember what she said. Her attempts to claim she was only suggesting the UK should be vocal in support of the US are just laughable. How does she imagine this would work? Fighter pilots cheering the American bombs?

Things turned a touch surreal near the end. Having tried to portray herself as a serious politician capable of grappling with serious problems, she then made a gag about the campaign of Very Blue Labour MP, Samantha Niblett, to bring dildos into parliament so that everyone could enjoy a summer of love. This may have been laugh out loud funny in Kemi’s office. In the Commons it just sounded weird. Or maybe it was just a plea to “Make Love, Not War”. The 60s revisited.

The Lib Dem leader, Ed Davey, turned his attention to Donald Trump. The US president turned self-appointed Risen Christ. Should we let him embarrass the king? Starmer has no qualms about criticising The Donald these days. The relationship can’t get any worse. The king could look after himself. Long after Trump was history, the US and the UK would still have a special relationship. Though our best interests lay in closer ties with the EU.

Strangely that produced only silence from the Tory benches. Normally they would be outraged at any hint of a Brexit climbdown. Maybe they were just depressed about their futures. Or maybe the penny is beginning to drop.