Tom Peck's Sketch: Introducing David Cameron – the first post-opposition PM

It is fortunate for the Prime Minister that the majority of Parliament Select Committees heads are Conservatives

David Cameron answers questions in front of the Liaison Select Committee (PA)

If, in his second term, we are to see more of Cameron the Compassionate Conservative, it cannot be ignored that there is indeed a pinko emerging with frightening acceleration.

It is emerging at the back of his head, quite literally a pink O. It means that Cameron 2.0 maintains far longer hair than Coalition Cameron. It is scraped back with assiduous care, but by mid afternoon has a tendency to become split down the middle like a watermelon, an unfortunate style which mid-90s boyband fans might understand as the reverse-curtains effect.

Fortunately, as he faced his semi-regular interrogation by the heads of all of Parliament’s Select Committees, in what is mysteriously known as the Liaison Committee - presumably in a doomed attempt to insert a little sex appeal - this was only apparent to the rows of hangers-on who filled the seats behind him.

Fortunately too, for the Prime Minister, the vast majority of such committee heads are Conservatives, which tends to yield the kind of grilling that would not threaten the structural integrity of a slice of Dairylea.

Jesse Norman, who runs the Culture Committee with a tenth of the jovial verbosity of Boris Johnson and none of the charm, set the tone from the start, engaging his face into deep-thought mode before beginning a full two hour session of advanced eyebrow yoga, holding his forehead in impossibly contorted positions for agonisingly long periods.

But not everyone played their part. This was Andrew Tyrie’s first chairing of the committee since his election to the post in October. Tyrie is a veteran Tory as dry as the Sahara and, as far as Cameron is concerned, just as hospitable. In 2005, he ran Ken Clarke’s leadership campaign. More recently, In the vote on Syrian air strikes, Tyrie voted no.

The details are complex and convoluted, but at one point, in an argument over the extent of operational information on Syria the Prime Minister should be obliged to share, Cameron jabbed his finger into the desk and told him: “If you don’t think there is a cell of people sitting in Raqqa planning to do damage to this country then you don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Later he was telling Huw Irranca-Davies - a name not to be said in a hurry: “You’ve talked for quite a while, let me have a go.”

If he seemed riled, it was not because he had been found out. They didn’t come close. Rather, it was the inconvenience of it all. This is the country’s first post-opposition Prime Minister don’t forget. He could do without the stress. We all know what that does.