We had come to hear from one of the great patriots of the age, a man who though small in stature stands like a giant among politicians for his fight to secure freedom for his people. The word had gone round and MPs and journalists rushed to be present, to see it with their own eyes. Yes, it was true: Philip Hollobone was going to be asking a question at PMQs.

Hollobone is the Tory MP for Kettering. He is the Brexiteers’ Brexiteer, the Spartans’ Spartan. Indeed his views on Europe are among his more mainstream positions: he also backs the return of national service and capital punishment. He is also very keen on Kettering.

The total losers who live, for instance, in Wellingborough

“Slava Ukraini!” Hollobone began, in recognition of the fact that Ukrainian President Vlodomyr Zelensky — a man who has also stood up for democracy, if not specifically in Kettering — was also going to be speaking to parliament a little later. “This year the start will be made to the rebuild of Kettering General Hospital,” he began. We held our breath. This was going to be one of the great speeches, a moment like Churchill on the Iron Curtain or Kennedy explaining why we shouldn’t ask what Kettering could do for us.

“Kettering,” Hollobone went on, “is set to become one of the best connected towns for ultra-fast broadband in the whole country.” They were getting more police, too. He could have said more, much more, but pressure of time forced him to simply ask whether it wasn’t time “to be far more optimistic about the many great things happening in Kettering — and across the country?” That last phrase was a generous nod to people less fortunate than Hollobone’s constituents: the total losers who live, for instance, in Wellingborough. 

Hollobone’s question was very much the highlight of PMQs: with Zelensky in town, the mood was one of sober solidarity. Keir Starmer asked whether the prime minister agreed about the importance of the UK standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Ukraine, and Sunak replied that it was indeed very important.

And then we processed over to Westminster Hall, the oldest part of the building. More than 2,000 of us squeezed into the freezing building to await the day’s star turn. It was a short-notice event, and there were seats only for the infirm. Nobody seemed to mind. Finally he appeared, to cheers and applause, a stocky figure in his trademark combat fatigues.

He spoke well, surprisingly so for those of who watched when he addressed Parliament by video-link last year. Then the simultaneous translation had flattened his rhetoric. Now he was speaking in English and, unlike many of those who address Parliament on the average day, he had something to say.

“I have come here and stand before you on behalf of the brave,” he began. “On behalf of our warriors who are now in the trenches under enemy artillery fire; on behalf of our air gunners, and every defender of the sky who protects Ukraine against enemy aircraft and missiles.”

He talked about visiting London two years ago, and descending into the Cabinet War Rooms, where he was offered the chance to sit in Churchill’s chair. “I certainly felt something,” he said. “But it is only now that I know what the feeling was. And all Ukrainians know it perfectly well too: it is a feeling of how bravery takes you through the most unimaginable hardships to finally reward you with victory.”

His fight isn’t just for Kiev, it’s for Kettering too

Boris Johnson was in the audience, looking as ever as though he’d been dragged from bed — his own or someone else’s. We don’t see him much these days, what with his global cashing-in commitments, but he had cancelled whatever was on the day’s agenda — the Wyoming Double Glazing Salesman Of The Month Awards? — and hot-footed it over to Parliament to get a whiff of reflected glory. In fairness to him, the UK’s swift and clear response to the invasion of Ukraine is the one clear highlight of his time in office, and he deserved the namecheck he got in Zelensky’s speech, even if the applause that followed was half-hearted. If you missed that bit, Johnson has, with typical dignity, clipped it out and stuck it on Twitter. I suppose we should be grateful that he didn’t charge the stage naked with a lit flare stuffed up his arse.

Zelensky’s speech was more than a list of thanks, though. He framed his country’s fight not as a struggle for its own survival but as a battle for everyone’s freedom. “After we win together, any aggressor, it doesn’t matter big or small, will know what awaits him if he attacks international order,” he said. “Any aggressor is going to lose.”

Give us the tools, Churchill told the Americans in 1941, and we will finish the job. Zelensky has had a great deal of success on this front already, but having got tanks, he wanted more. He was off to meet the King after he had finished with us. “In Britain, the King is an air force pilot,” he said, telling us something about Charles’ time in the forces that most of us had forgotten. “And in Ukraine today every air force pilot is a king.”

He pulled out a gift for Parliament, a fighter pilot’s helmet. This was what he wanted now: “Combat aircraft for Ukraine. Wings for freedom.”

He was banking everything he’d been given and asking for more, but Parliament, at that moment, seemed willing to give him whatever he wanted. After all, as he hadn’t quite put it, this fight isn’t just for Kiev, it’s for Kettering too.