AT Prime Minister’s questions, the Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, announced: “This is the new year. I want to start off with a refreshed chamber.” Certainly, you’d be forgiven for thinking some members sound well refreshed.

It was a new year loosely based on the previous year. You could summarise PMQs as follows. Labour: Sunak weak. Tories: union paymasters. SNP: it’s Scotland’s energy.

Today I was fortunate to miss most of the prior session, Scottish Questions, the latter stages of which presented the usual picture of Labour and the Tories holding hands to slate the SNP, whose backbenchers retorted with stupefying inarticulacy.

Later, during PMQs, Scottish Tory David Duguid also stumbled over his words. It’s a Scottish thing. They’re nervous in a foreign parliament.

Except for the SNP’s Westminster leader Stephen Flynn. The skinhead wideboy isn’t afraid of anybody and, yesterday, steamed into Tory PM Rishi Sunak, citing a wide array of alleged calamities under Westminster rule: the longest and deepest recession in the G7; Brexit; energy crisis; inflation; interest rates.

“If the people of Scotland” – hey, Ian Blackford copyrighted that – “are to do the maths, as the Prime Minister so hopes, will they simply come to the conclusion that this Union just doesn’t add up?”

When Rishi responded by claiming the Holyrood Government had proven it doesn’t support the Scottish energy industry, the Flynnster flew in with both fists flying: “If he wants to talk about the fact that Scotland is energy-rich but fuel-poor on Westminster’s watch, I am more than happy to do so.”

Robert McNeil: There's a moose loose in the Westminster Hoose

Meantime, he wanted to talk more about numbers, “in particular those of the Prime Minister’s favourite potential successor”. Eh? Who dat? Turns out he meant Boris Johnson, who isn’t even on Rishi’s Christmas card list, never mind his succession plan.

Anyway. Over four months, from four speeches, said Stephen, the alleged Boris “raked in in excess of a million pounds”. Poor boy’s gotta eat. “Does the Prime Minister not find it utterly perverse that senior members of the Conservative Party are feathering their nest in this way whilst at the same time seeking to deny working people” – voice rising; shades of Tommy Sheridan’s oratory now – “the opportunity to strike for fair pay?”

Riposted the PM: “I don’t think we need to talk about our predecessors” – laughter – “but I think it was one of his predecessors who did indeed work for Russia Today.” Ouchy. A reference to Salmond, A.

Still, it’s a shame Mr Flynn gets only two questions. If only a couple could be taken off Labour leader Keir Starmer, who gets six. Yesterday, he spent them all on the NHS, with the debate petering out after three or four, as he and Rishi just repeated themselves like student union hopefuls.

Before Sir Keir got up on his hind legs, Labour backbencher Cat Smith got her teeth into the PM about the complete lack of NHS dental appointments for new patients in her Lancaster and Fleetwood constituency.

Pointedly, given the PM’s recent refusal to discuss his own health arrangements, she asked “how long he had to wait for his dentist appointment?”

Replied Mr Sunak: “I am registered with an NHS GP. I have used independent health care in the past.” Much misused word “independent” (see also schools). In unconvincing mitigation, the PM added that he was “proud to come from an NHS family”.

Mr Starmer could do better than that. He had given NHS nurses a clap, and “I meant it”. The Keiroid said there’d been no national NHS strikes under Labour and, had the Tories negotiated, there’d be none now.

Sunak: “We have always been clear.” Obfuscation alert! “We want to have constructive dialogue with the unions.” Ah, suddenly it was all clear: they’re lying.

Robert McNeil: Festive merriment at PMQs as two field mice flail feebly at each other

Rishi said Labour was “in hock” to the unions, besides which Sir K was ignoring the “extraordinary impact” of Covid on the health service, while his opposition to the new minimum service legislation was baffling since it was common all over Europe, a place the Labour leader usually revered.

Keir riposted that, since Rishi had said he was registered with an NHS doctor, perhaps he might “enjoy the experience of waiting on hold every morning at 8am to get a GP appointment”.

Sunak: Pandemic!

Starmer: Broken NHS! And so it petered out, though not before Plaid Cymru Westminster leader Liz Saville Roberts chuntered on further about health provision in Wales.

“You can’t go on forever, Liz,” the Speaker warned her. But she could. So could they all, with or without a refreshment.