THE mood at Prime Minister’s Questions in this first week of a new session was unsurprisingly sombre.

That’s not a word normally ascribed to the SNP’s ponytailed braveheart Chris Law, the first MP called to speak. You can usually rely on Chris, in his disturbingly brown shoes, to say something, er, colourful.

But, on this occasion, he spoke movingly about Nadia El-Nakla, wife of First Minister Humza Yousaf, taking heartbreaking calls from her parents in Gaza describing “death and indiscriminate killing”.

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He was followed by Tory MP Sajid David (one of these people who look like a leadership contender once they’ve stopped being a leadership contender) speaking of his pride at living in “the most successful multi-racial democracy in the world” but his sadness at the “vile abuse” aimed at British Jews.

He wanted the visas revoked of any foreign national who commits “an act of anti-Semitism or any other hate crime”.

Mr Sunak agreed such incidents had been “utterly sickening”, adding: “We will not tolerate this hatred, not in this country, not in this century.”

Here we had the first slight stirring of the Churchillian flights of oratory demanded by the situation.

Labour opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer, distressed by scenes at Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City and the “unimaginable agony” of hostages’ families, had a go with: “Hamas are not the Palestinian people and the Palestinian people are not Hamas.” And: “Because hope is at its thinnest we must work our hardest”.

Usually, with these outbreaks of unity between the PM and the Leader of the Opposition, we wait till two-thirds through for the first sign of discord. On this occasion, none came.

Indeed Sir Keir ended: “Does the Prime Minister agree that, during this grave crisis, this House must strive to speak with one voice?”

PM: “I agree.”

Even the SNP were up for concord. Up to a point. The party’s Westminster leader Stepen Flynn condemned both the Hamas terrorist attack and “any acts of collective punishment against the Palestinian people”.

However, he also called for an immediate ceasefire, which the PM is understood to think unrealistic at this time. Mr Sunak restated Israel’s duty to defend itself, adding that, unlike Hamas, it had made clear it would act “in accordance with international law”.

Mr F followed up with a call for a refugee resettlement scheme, which might have carried more weight were it not for the slight sub-text of getting on the PM’s case about migrants again.

After all this horror, it was a relief to turn to Britain’s more parochial, Hobbit-like concerns, the sort of mundane problems for which Israelis and Palestinians must yearn (well, maybe not HS2, right enough).

Indeed, transport accounted for most other subjects raised. Andy Carter (Con) sought assurances that Warrington would benefit from a railway line upgrade.

Martin Vickers (Con) called for duelling of the A15 between Lincoln and the A180 to Cleethorpes, and was about to dawdle down another byway when the Speaker intervened to stop him going through the entire AA atlas.

It brought to mind the Monty Python landlady ill-advisedly asking a new guest about his journey: “We had to wait half an hour to go on the M5 near Droitwich. Then there was a three-mile queue on the A38. Normally we come round on the B339 at the intersection where the A372 joins. Then we got all the Croydon traffic on the A358 …”

Mark Eastwood (Con) drew the first ironic cheers of the day with his restrained declamation about funding for the Peniston rail link from Huddersfield through Dewsbury to Sheffield.

Less pedestrianly, Janet Daby (Lab), complained about NHS cuts, asking: “When will the Prime Minister stand up to the extremists in his party?” But they didn’t seem so extreme any more, in the great scheme of things.

Soon we were back to the horror, with Stewart M. MacDonald (SNP) defending Israel’s right to security, before pointedly adding that “acting against international law in response to terrorism is unjustified”. He asked the Government to ensure adherence to international law, “beyond just statements from Israel’s head of state”.

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Gavin Newlands (SNP) said condemnation of Hamas’ “inhuman terrorism” should apply equally to “any obscenities and war crimes carried out by the Israeli defence force”. Accusing the PM and Sir Keir of supporting the siege of Gaza and witholding of water – a “war crime” – he wanted to know: “Why?”

The PM countered that Israel had a right to root out terrorists, and accused Mr Newlands of forgetting that Hamas embedded itself in civilian populations.

Thus the fragile peace in the House of Commons. It won’t last. Peace never does.