Question Time with Nick Clegg was awful, grim, nerve-shreddingly ghastly. You yearned for him to wake up, sweat soaking his pillow, realising it had all been a horrible dream, a mother's soothing hand on his brow.

I wondered if the bullies felt some remorse. Did they ask themselves what it must be like for an innocent, vulnerable man to face such torment? Was there a twinge of conscience that they had made life so hellish for someone so unable to cope with their abuse?

At the same time, do we not suspect that the victim covertly accepts, even welcomes, his fate? Mr Clegg seemed unprepared for what he must have known was coming, like someone playing on a railway track who is astonished to spot the 10.40 from Euston.

It all started quietly, with questions about the plan for voters to recall an MP who has broken the rules. Labour's Roberta Blackman-Woods wanted to know if MPs could be recalled by voters for breaking their promises and, if so, how many Lib Dem MPs . The rest of her words were lost in a delighted roar. Mr Clegg said the bill would deal only with "serious wrongdoing". "Exactly!" yelled a dozen more Labour MPs.

Chris Bryant joined the monstering. Who decided who had broken the rules? What about a party that promised 3,000 more policemen then cut 10,000? Mr Clegg responded with nervous hand signals, the left making a cow pat, the right hand a spider dancing on a hot plate. At one point he called for MPs who could "speak out, and, er, er, you know, articulate … " Call for Lionel Logue!

Kelvin Hopkins pointed out that while the prime minister was away, his deputy had been skiing in the Alps. So did the PM prefer the foreign secretary in charge?

Weirdly, Mr Clegg responded with an encomium to our brave and professional armed forces. What was that about?

A Conservative, Andrea Leadsom, tried to help. Big mistake. What was he doing to restore the public's faith in politics and in MPs? This time the Labour roar was mixed with shrieking and cackling, like a convention of drunken witches. Mob hysteria was taking hold. The Clegg reply: "Our programme is directed to restore public faith in MPs" only raised the noise level.

Harriet Harman asked a convoluted question which ended by asking what he thought of the fact that the word "Clegged" now meant "completely betrayed". And John Mann asked brutally: "What is the point of Nick Clegg?" There were many possible replies. The one he got – "err" – was not among them.

Gleeful, crazed Labour MPs must have been tightening various body parts to prevent horrible accidents on the bench. Mr Clegg should have swept the question contemptuously aside. Instead he began to chunter about how a chief executive is still a chief executive when abroad, a football manager is still in charge at an away game. I wanted to lean over and yell: "Stop digging!"

A Labour voice shouted: "Only two minutes left!" Bang on the hour, the Speaker ended the misery.