In the shadow of the Westminster sex scandal, today's PMQs was particularly grim to watch

At two minutes to 12, Theresa May arrived wearing the easy air of a doctor about to tell a patient that yes, it’s terminal

There was an awkward tension in the air at PMQs (Reuters)

The zombies arrived a day late for Halloween. All across the front bench and beyond, the undead sat. Some had their arms folded, some let them hang by their sides, as their eyes stared lifelessly at an unfixed mark in the middle distance.

Words reverberated around their ears. Dennis Skinner jabbed his finger in their direction, but real life wasn’t troubling the world inside their skulls. There were traumas going on in there. Public shame. Online ridicule. Thermonuclear rows at home, no doubt.

Yesterday morning Mr and Ms A, B and C had been the member for X, Y and Z. Now they knew they were the “handsy” one, the “very inappropriate” one. The one who’d had “sexual relations.” The one who’d “fornicated.”

At two minutes to 12, Theresa May arrived wearing the easy air of a doctor about to tell a patient that yes, it’s terminal. Whatever she had planned to say on the topic of sexual harassment at Westminster cannot have been made easier at 11pm last night, when the scandal re-centred itself on Damian Green, her de facto deputy and only ally.

For his part, he wore the air of a man who had not enjoyed a particularly restful night. He’s denied the allegations against him, but what has he denied exactly? That he may or may not have, for an infinitesimally short moment, touched the knee of a daughter of a family friend? He is surely not denying inviting said friend, a party activist, out for a drink, prompted to do so by pictures of her wearing a corset in The Times? He did so by text, and the texts still exist.

Jeremy Corbyn devoted most of his questions to “957 business jets on the Isle of Man” and the tax avoidance that must surely be occurring there. He really did do that.

But what choice did he have? At five o'clock yesterday afternoon, a well-known and well-liked activist in his own party said she’d been raped at a party event and nothing had been done. Both sides have made noble noises about not seeking to “politicise” this growing scandal. They are the right noises, but when both sides appear to be so gravely at fault, they are also convenient noises.

It’s a grim business, from start to finish. A list of names and allegations, some in breach of the law, some in breach of family values, some in breach of puritanical taste, some the business of consenting adults and absolutely nothing more. But, such is the changing nature of public conversation, the list itself becomes the story. “Have you seen the list?” “Have you got the list?” Names degraded, victims named, absolutely nothing that bears any relation to justice done.

In a few short remarks at the start, Theresa May told the House that all parties would “work together, quickly, to resolve this”, a statement that passes direct to the Valhalla of “Things Theresa May Has Said That Are Definitely Not Going To Happen” to sit alongside making a success of Brexit and there definitely not being a general election before 2020.

If Theresa May imagines the problem of old men holding the reins of power – and often abusing them – in a working world in which young women are seeking to climb the career ladder is one that is going to be “quickly resolved”, and by Westminster politicians of all people, then, well, it at least puts various promises about Brexit into some kind of context.

At some point in the near future, when this storm has apparently blown over, and there’s something else to talk about, there the zombies will be again. Their eyes in your rear-view mirror, their hands outstretched, their teeth on your neck.