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Hello and welcome to Coffeehouse Shots, the Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast.

I'm Isabel Harbman, and I'm joined by James Versaith and Katie Balls.

Well, it's 60 years since the first ever Prime Minister's

questions in the House of Commons. And the session today to mark this world famous event was

not exactly a vintage one, was it, James? I think the hope was that when the July 19th re-opened

date was announced, there'd be kind of one proper session of PMQs.

But those hopes were obviously dashed by the fact that Boris Johnson is having to sell Vice Day at Chequers, despite his best efforts to avoid that.

And I thought today's session showed whether this kind of virtual parliament really doesn't work in terms of holding the executive to account.

PMQ should be the most difficult half an hour of the week for the government in the House of Commons.

It should be when the executive has to explain itself.

But today, Boris Johnson at the Times sounded like a kind of commuter on a train going through a tunnel saying,

Can you hear me? Can you hear me can you hear me

and there was lots of i'm sorry i didn't quite hear that question but i think you asked this question

so i'm going to answer that instead and it just really didn't work now you know keerstarmann tried to

have a bit more swagger today i still think think his questions are too long. And Boris Johnson

isn't, I think it's fair to say, isn't particularly keen on answering the question at PMQ. So the longer

the question that Keir Starma asks, the more scope it gives Boris Johnson to go off on the particular

...