David Cameron gave Britain a haircut - but somehow the joke's still on Jeremy Corbyn

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One of his junior defence ministers was mid-answer to an innocuous question when the worst Prime Minister in the nation’s history entered the chamber from behind the Speakers’ chair. An almighty cheer went up. They waved their white order papers above their heads as if it were some pre-planned tribute at a football stadium.

David Cameron looked well rested, relaxed. He’d had a haircut. He’d risked the his country for his party and he’d lost, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be time for jokes.

Rosena Allin-Khan, the newly elected member for Tooting was sworn in before all could get underway. Labour’s 36 hour blitzkrieg resignation operation had left their leader with around 60 shadow ministerial posts to fill. “Keep your phone switched on you might have a job by the end of the day,” he told her.

Even today, when the leader of the Conservative Party would have to atone for the costs of the most recklessly irresponsible gamble committed by a Western democratic government in a century or more, the joke was on Jeremy.

These two are both lame ducks now. It was fitting in its own way, that their exchanges should be true to form.

“We need to calm our language, calm our tone, especially after the shocking events of ten days ago,” Corbyn said. “Our country is divided. The country will thank neither the benches in front of me or behind for indulging in internal factioning and maneuvring at this time.”

Jo Cox had been killed, so he should stay. As his own members shouted, ‘Resign!’ he could scarcely be heard. Such things are unprecedented. But these are unique times.

Cameron was his usual cheerful, confident self. Some people admired him for it. How else could he cope? While he spoke Standard & Poor’s rating agency downgraded the UK’s credit rating to AA Negative, which means a large amount of your money will now be spent paying interest to banks for Cameron’s cataclysmic mistake. Oh well.

He was a fine Prime Minister, in his way. His greatest strength appears to have been his normality, even he will now always be remembered for one moment of quite breathtaking madness.

And one by one, the least able members of the house rose to pay faux tribute to its most able, a chilling pastiche of the sheer totality in which everything has gone wrong.

Kate Hoey rose to ask the Prime Minister what he would be doing to ensure those who had voted to leave were not considered, ‘closet racists’ when there’s absolutely nothing closet about it.

Philip Davies, a man who takes it upon himself to choose which private members legislation will proceed and which will not and then spends his Friday mornings filibustering what he doesn’t approve out of sight, rose to demand the Prime Minister confirm, ‘There would be no freedom of movement and the UK would make no contribution to the EU budget.’

This is a man who is yet to champion any cause beyond high street bookmakers rights on fixed odds betting terminals. There is no occasion to which the man will not descend.

There was Gerald Howarth, “hoping” that the United Kingdom would “continue to play a role in Europe,” having donated the full energy of his life to ensuring his nation is so profoundly loathed by its neighbours.

The Tory mind is always best understood as an appetite for power. To not be in power is an affront to its purpose. It is to its profound disadvantage that Labour does not think like this.

For the Tory backbench deadbeat nano-brained neurotic no-hopers club, the perceived transferral of sovereignty to Brussels is a deeply personal affront. What little they have, they feel is being taken away.

They have crushed their party, split their nation and closed off the door on their own children’s future to get it. The smallest of men, made impossibly small.

It was the greatest day of their lives. All power returned. And where was their leader, Frank Underwood of the Bullingdon? Keeping himself to himself, still, and tending to the full sovereignty of his own sociopathic ego.