David Lammy’s big legacy announcement was a part-pardon for Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Britain for murder.

Someone had leaned on Speaker Hoyle to call a question from Pam Cox (Lab, Colchester). Her name was not on the order paper but the Speaker has discretion to go off-piste. This place works on little favours like that. A nod here. An obligation paid.

Deputy Prime Minister Mr Lammy was taking questions because Sir Keir Starmer had skedaddled to Turkey for the Nato summit. Sir Keir is more frightened of PMQs than he is, even, of Donald Trump.

The nasal knight has only one despatch-box Wednesday left. Being deposed has its consolations.

The session had been slow. Pulverisingly so. A less-than-full chamber was enervated. Lucy Powell, who will reportedly be made deputy PM by Eyelashes Andy, sat in the second row with her mouth hanging open. A bluebottle flew into that gawping cave, did a tour of the grotto and came toddling out again. You could keep at least three ping-pong balls in lumbering Lucy’s gaping gob. Jolly useful.

Ms Cox, without energy, asked if Mr Lammy would have another look at the 1955 case of Ellis. Mr Lammy replied that the King had granted a conditional pardon. Ellis had been a victim of domestic violence and the verdict in her case might therefore have been different today. So might the punishment. She’d have probably been given an ankle tag and told not to be so impetuous again.

Members of Ruth Ellis’s family were in the gallery to hear that their grandmother’s crime had been changed from murder to manslaughter. I suppose it will be a comfort to them, but it all came 71 years too late for the killer herself.

Mr Lammy’s announcement created almost no stir. Westminster in July is always lethargic, but this year more than ever. The palace is badly ventilated. The Government is in its final throes. Everyone longs to leave town.

The Commons was a pond of wan faces. Backbenchers who arrived only two years ago already look miserable, brows like walnuts, the skin pouchy below their eyes. They thought government was going to be easier.

Walking the corridors, you gain an idea of what it must have been like behind the walls of Troy towards the end of the siege. People no longer bother to exchange morning greetings or ask ‘How are you?’ Eyes are to the floor. Feet shuffle.

The only sign of the stoicism that was once our nation’s distinctive mark is that, even in this stifling weather, the Commons canteen is still serving jam roly-poly with hot custard. It thickens and grows a skin, like a genetically modified gerbil. I was the only taker.

Nigel Farage’s difficulties were mentioned. People tried to laugh. It should have cheered them up more than it did. Rachel Reeves, beside Mr Lammy, was rigid. Mark Francois (Con, Rayleigh & Wickford) was so red and sweaty, his face appeared to have been carved from watermelon.

The Tories’ James Cleverly played a dirty trick on Mr Lammy by keeping his questions serious. Mr Lammy went through the motions. Someone wished him luck ‘in whatever job he gets’ under Mr Burnham. Half-hearted Tory heckle: ‘None!’

Down on the committee corridor, the new director general of the BBC, Matt Brittin, underwent his first parliamentary scrutiny. Quite tall, an evangelical air. Faint whiff of toothpaste off him. Long thumbs. He used words such as ‘uplift’, ‘behaviours’, ‘scope’ and ‘compelling’ and wore two silver rings on his left hand, one on the index finger. You know the type.

Dame Caroline Dinenage, the ageing hoofer who chairs the culture committee, was feeling the heat. Both armpits raised, she wafted herself with a fan as big as a squash racquet. She lifted her chin to the ceiling, nostrils whiffling at the slight draught. She called to mind a spaniel sticking its snout out of the window of a car in traffic, its tongue whiplashing in the wind.