Slow-motion humiliation for Starmer as he loses control of Commons

The extraordinary thing about this is it felt, albeit perhaps just fleetingly, like the fraught and chaotic parliamentary rows about Brexit.

Or even the bumpy moments for Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.

It is extraordinary to say that because the parallel seems absurd: those moments in recent years happened to prime ministers without their own mandate or much of a majority or when engulfed in scandal.

But the parallel is this: a government transparently not in control of events, shoved around humiliatingly by parliament.

The astonishing thing about this row is Sir Keir Starmer has a mandate and a majority.

But not only did swathes of his own MPs desert him, Downing Street was insufficiently nimble to first clock the breadth and depth of their anger and then realise quickly enough the scale of…