The Sketch: Weasel words let forth a sickening flood of cynicism

A bit flat, you may think, this new, midday Prime Minister's Question Time. But a colleague more experienced in politics knew why. "It's before lunch," he said. "No one is drunk." If you think that sounds cynical, try this.

Tony Blair backed new proposals to keep first-time burglars out of jail; without drawing breath he boasted that more first-time offenders than ever were being imprisoned. Forty per cent more! So he expects credit for (a) humanitarian penal practices (b) the opposite.

"If you can't ride two horses at once you shouldn't be in the circus," an ex-minister told me. That is cynicism.

Labour is still shushing Mr Thing, wrongly, in view of the fact he's given up the quiet man act. He wasn't much good at it.

Piano wasn't his forte. He thingily tried to develop a cabinet split over the likelihood of war with Iraq. Jack Straw says the odds of war are 60-40 against, and Geoff Hoon disagrees. But there is no split; Mr Straw has to push out a little optimism in order to preserve the illusion that we're going through a legal process and haven't already made up our minds. That, too, is cynicism.

Charles Kennedy made this as clear as he could. If the weapons inspectors don't find concrete evidence of weapons of mass destruction, he asked, would the Americans invade Iraq anyway? The Prime Minister refused to speculate. What then, Mr Kennedy went on, would America have to do so that we wouldn't support her? The Prime Minister wouldn't be drawn.

It is clear Mr Blair will follow Mr Bush into the lower circles of hell – or at least send our troops in his stead, to pay what he has called "the blood price" for our relationship with America. Other people's money funds the health service; other people's blood pays the subs on our special relationship.

Peter Luff, Conservative MP for Mid Worcestershire, pointed out patients in his area were not waiting on corridor trolleys but in ambulances outside the hospital. In a week where Mr Blair's own staff were providing written warnings that the vast NHS cash might be wasted, this was fertile ground.

Mr Blair said things were going extraordinarily well in the health service. Every indicator was better than five years ago. "We now have the total dividing line. We want to put the investment in and they want a 20 per cent cut across the board," he said. Excellent. Now all the Tories need to do is show how they can provide better public services with less public money. It's not impossible; Labour themselves have suckered £100bn of private money into the public service with various partnerships. When the Tories work out how to present their own version of this they will immediately rise eight and a half points in the polls.

Charles Hendry, a Tory MP, (heckler: "Never heard of him!") complained about floods under this Government. John Prescott made King Canute gestures with his hands. Or, more accurately, King Cnut gestures (I'm glad I'm not dyslexic).

The Prime Minister claimed flooding too had got very much better under his rule. All in all, it made you want to tie a knot in his forked tongue.

Simoncarr75@hotmail.com