Ange is back on Commons Street, and it couldn’t have been camper had she pushed through a pub door and said: “Pack your bags cock, I’m buying the Rovers.”

Thinner since resignation, her skin glowing – someone’s had her chakras realigned at the Ashton Spa – she rose majestically to deliver a tale of “rags to riches to rags again” that would crack the heart of Little Nell. “When I think back to how far I’ve come” – council house, single mum – “people wrote me off. They assumed I’d be on benefits my whole life.”

Given that Ange enjoyed a grace-n-favour flat and was paid from the public purse, a cynic might say she still was – but not me! I was in floods of tears as Bridget Phillipson played a violin. How did we ever allow this brilliant, empathetic woman to lose her job?

Seriously. How? I don’t know because the one thing Ange did not dwell upon was what she’d done to force her to leave the government. Almost absent of sin or guilt, it seemed miraculous: an “immaculate resignation”.

I’ll skip through PMQs. Kemi slammed Keir on grooming gangs. Keir dragged his feet because, following a total collapse in the polls, foreign-born rapists now comprise Labour’s core vote. Watching from the gallery was Nigel Farage, who complains he never gets to speak – a king in the royal box. When MPs mentioned him, which was often, he laughed and shrugged and did his Frankie Howerd face. Nigel doesn’t even have to sit on the green benches to dominate them.

Heidi Alexander gave a statement next on Heathrow, aided by very junior minister Keir Mather, straight out of school. Heidi lifted him onto the bench so he could see. Keir’s still mastering his transport brief. He hasn’t flown on a plane yet, but Mummy and Daddy say he can have a go if he does well in his GCSEs.

I mock his age to make a point: many backbenchers hate how Starmer isolates socialists while promoting dull centrists so unready for the Cabinet that they require parental supervision to attend.

Ange used the “S” word in her compelling statement. Not “sorry” – if she said it, I missed it – but “socialist values”, along with positive mentions of trades unions and the working class. This is why Labour loves her. As the party completes its transformation into the political wing of the legal industry, staffed by androids from Oxbridge, Angela’s presence allows them to maintain the fantasy that they have principles and a constituency, that it’s their historic mission to “strengthen the hand of working people”.

Rayner did not say she was running for leader, but she invited obvious contrast with grey, shallow Starmer – and with Farage, too, for she’s the only Labour lefty with a personality of equal colour. Under Rayner, Labour vs Reform would be reminiscent of the golden age of Corrie vs EastEnders, when the arms race for soap ratings got so absurd that Emmerdale had to crash a plane to compete. Take note, Ed Davey.

Political struggle is “not about yourself”, she said modestly, as fireworks erupted, a “vote Rayner” banner fell and the Gay Men’s Chorus burst into “Well, hellooo Dolly!” And she’s right. That speech was about Keir Starmer.