Good morning, Dave

The uncomfortable feeling to be had among Conservatives in Westminster this week was that leader Dave was wingin’ it in all the wrong places.

The Commons experienced a Kubrickesque moment when the PM went into temporary shutdown mode at the dispatch box over allegations of undisclosed emails. His outright refusal to respond to questions as to why he had failed to hand over correspondence exchanged with Rebekah Brooks to the Leveson Inquiry left MPs gawping on both sides of the chamber.

This uncharacteristically poor performance was compounded by him making a right Horlicks of ‘proposals’ to simplify energy tariffs. Labour could not believe their subsequent luck at being gifted with a patently undeveloped pricing policy which left energy companies and ministers equally in the dark over actual details.

Several tory backbenchers ensconced in the Strangers Bar, fresh from giving Andrew Mitchell what for by proxy at the 1922 committee, were overheard mumbling what sounded like “clucking brambles” in relation to PMQs. The usual suspects are convinced that something really bad is brewing on the horizon and that Cameron's judgment is affected by having to deal with other unnecessary distractions.

If one of these distractions is Mitchell then an ominous sign is that Downing Street aides who were earlier dismissing suggestions that the PM had been undermined by persistent calls from his own side for his chief whip to go are no longer commenting on the matter.

Update: As predicted, the pleb-hater has got on his bike.