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After a day of tiaras, fascinators and ermine robes - aka the Queen's Speech - the sketch-writers have returned their attention to the more modest green benches of the Commons chamber.

All (hacks') eyes were on the education debate between Ed Balls and his opposite number, Michael Gove [].

at Mr Balls' oratorical style:

"Now he's just a noisy party in the house next door. Try as you might you can't get off to sleep while he's talking. The thump thump thump of his bass line makes the walls of your eardrums bulge but you can't make out any words, or the tune. It's just thump thump thump, like an abstract form of corporal punishment."

the recent comments of Labour MP Barry Sheerman - he who labelled Ed Balls "a bit of a bully" - in his caricature of the schools secretary:

"Mr Balls, who is a playground bully at heart, realised he had found a victim... 'Does he want to try that? Wanna try?' He sounded like an aggressive thug chanting 'Want some, do yer? Want some?' in a pub car park."

Michael Gove escapes lightly by comparison at the hands of Mr Hoggart:

"[He] may have been watching I'm A Celebrity... because suddenly he accused Ed Balls of being 'the Katie Price, the Jordan of the government. All he is interested in is being on the front pages, so he has massively inflated what he has to offer!' Oooh, missus!"

that the whole debate took on a schoolboy air as MPs giggled their way through, giggling not only at the Katie Price cracks, but also when Mr Balls fired GCSE exam questions at Mr Gove following the Conservative spokesman's suggestion that they were dumbing down.

, only mentioning in passing Mr Balls' opening line.

"His first word: 'Hi!'
"Good grief."

Mr Letts instead chose to concentrate on the lack of bodies present in the chamber, especially after the crammed conditions of the previous day.

Any other business? During the health debate, to political aficionados' favourite, The Thick of It, in using the word "omni-shambles" to refer to Tory policy on NHS targets - to the .

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