It took less than ten minutes for Lindsay Hoyle to lose control at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday. Three times he told the Conservative benches to quieten down before Keir Starmer could get through a question. The Speaker was furious, telling MPs, implausibly, that their constituents wanted to hear what the Labour leader had to say. But any class knows when it has the teacher on the run.

Sunak just can’t pull off the role of class bully.

They had clearly come back from their holidays in a boisterous mood. Perhaps they’re buoyed up by some of the wishful briefing that’s featured so prominently in newspapers recently, pieces explaining that if you ignore the overall polling and focus instead on some segment of the electorate or other, Rishi Sunak is secretly on course for election triumph. You have to cling to something.

The prime minister had opened by announcing that he was off to Belfast again for the continuing celebrations of the Good Friday Agreement, now well into their second week. It’s possible that Sunak is going to insist Bill Clinton carries on giving speeches until the Democratic Unionists crack and agree to support his Brexit plans.

Labour’s Abena Oppong-Asare accused the prime minister of ditching plans to build more houses in order to appease Tory members. Behind Sunak, Conservative MPs looked nonplussed. They can conceive no higher political objective than keeping their members happy.

Starmer chose to ask about comments from Greg Hands, the Tory party chair, that public services were in “pretty good shape”. Hands is an inoffensive chap who seems to have become radicalised by his promotion. He now tweets a picture of the Labour “no money” letter from 2010 on an hourly basis. As Elon Musk looks for ways to monetise Twitter, he should consider charging people to mute the Conservative chairman. A “Hands-free” service, if you like.

Sunak was onto a loser here. All he could possibly do is say how terribly well things are going. All Starmer had to do in reply was keep listing all the things that aren’t working.

The prime minister, though, had what he’d obviously been told was a killer comeback. His plans for a crime crackdown were, he said, “all opposed by Sir Softy over there!”

Tory MPs greeted this as though it had been written by Oscar Wilde and delivered by Michael McIntyre. “More,” they cried. “More!” They liked it so much Sunak said it again a bit later. “That’s why they call him Sir Softy,” he said. “Soft on crime, soft on criminals!”

Tory MPs had been uncontrollably raucous

The problem is that Sunak just can’t pull off the role of class bully. Boris Johnson could do name-calling because he was an instinctive bully, with a coward’s instinct for the moment when the crowd can be made to turn and laugh at the weak kid. If Sunak was involved in any school bullying, my guess would be that he was on the receiving end of it.

He is much better as a smartarse, as he showed when replying to a very long Starmer question that had been made even longer by Hoyle’s inability to control the class. “I can’t quite remember,” Sunak began, “but I think he started by talking about…” This is the character he should lean into: class swot.

Tory MPs had been uncontrollably raucous while Starmer was asking the questions, but they somehow managed to turn it up a notch when the SNP’s Stephen Flynn rose to speak. They have had to sit through years of pious speeches from Scottish Nationalists about how much more virtuous life is north of the border, so they can be forgiven for enjoying the daily perp walk that is Edinburgh politics these days. Flynn was greeted with unconstrained delight. He made the best of it.

“I am delighted,” he said, when Hoyle had eventually quietened things, “to hear that members had a peaceful and relaxing Easter break, as I did.” It was a bad hand played well. But his questions, effectively attacking Labour, were an interesting indication of what worries the SNP these days.

After PMQs had finished, it was time for an urgent question about the Chinese government’s work to intimidate dissidents in this country. Unfortunately the Security Minister, Tom Tugendhat, was in Belfast, so Policing Minister Chris Philp had to stand in. He looked terrified, like someone who has revised for their Physics A Level and realises as they turn over the paper that today’s exam is Chemistry.

It was painful to watch. Almost everyone there seemed to know more about the subject than Philp. At one stage, as Labour’s Dan Jarvis was asking a question, Philp turned to the civil servants sitting at the edge of the chamber and gave a huge shrug, begging them for the answer. He began to ramble, referring, magnificently, to “the law-enforcement community”. Truly the woke mind virus gets everywhere, but I think these days the preferred language is “people of law enforcement”.

Never mind. The first week back to school is always the worst.