Most ghostly of PMQs. At the start there were 80 members present, perhaps a fifth of the usual throng. Conservative backbenchers, not always so obedient, had followed social-distancing recommendations, many of them keeping distances of 6ft from one another. They could have been Englishmen on a desert island, yet to be introduced.

The opposition benches were fuller but the chamber still had a sepulchral emptiness. With no background hubbub one could hear the thwub-dub of swinging double-doors, the scratch of Speaker Hoyle’s nib, a rustle from Jeremy Corbyn’s script and the bulldog mutterings of John McDonnell, biting the air as he and colleagues demanded more government spending in response to the virus crisis.

If you have ever been to a county cricket match midweek you