Comprehensive spending review: Now for the bonfire of the civilians

Hail those brave men and women who are about to lay down their salaries and their pensions for their country

These defence cuts are going to mean rewriting much of British history and literature. For example, a modern Shakespeare would have to write: "Once more unto the breach, dear friend … or close up quite a small part of the wall with our English dead."

Churchill would have declaimed: "Men will still say, 'this was his finest hour!'" Wellington would have surveyed his troop, and said: "I don't know what he does to the enemy, but by God he frightens me." Drake would have averred: "There is plenty of time to win my game of patience, and thrash the Spaniards too." Nelson: "Kiss me, anyone!"

All right, it's not quite that bad, and the prime minister's statement did include some cunning little sidebars, such as the fact that in cash terms, spending on defence isn't being cut at all. What they are claiming is a bonfire of the civilians, those brave men and women who are about to lay down their salaries and their pensions for their country. And there will be two new aircraft carriers, though no aircraft to put on them apart from, possibly, an advance squadron of elastic-launched stealth paper darts. "Never was so much owed by so many to nobody at all."

There was a somewhat hesitant riposte to the prime minister's statement from Ed Miliband, who said: "I also welcome, I also welcome, I also welcome" three times, as if he simply couldn't figure out what to say next – and his claim that the Tories were creating "a large, unfunded spending commitment" was met with what I can only call quizzical jeers from the Tories.

But if David Cameron thought that this less than robust reply meant an end to his troubles, he was wrong. For there rose in his pomp Sir Peter Tapsell, the Father of the House, and a panjandrum who makes the average double-breasted MP look like Norman Wisdom on a bad day. Hansard writers stood by. They knew that Sir Peter's words would soon be carved and gilded upon a mighty limestone memorial somewhere in Whitehall. Every word would need to be meticulously recorded for posterity.

"Is the pwime minister aware" – Sir Peter has a slight speech impediment – "that there are many who view with gweat concern the decision to postpone the vital decisions on the future of Trident nuclear detewent until 2016, after …" he thumped the word "after" as if it were a hooligan who had attacked his daughter – "the genewal election, when! For all we know! The Lib Dems!" – he pronounced their name is if saying "the lice who live under stones" – "may still be there in the cabinet, lifelong opponents of the nuclear detewent, who will continue to twy to veto it.

"This decision looks like the subordination of the national interest to political expediency!"

Once you have been rolled over by Sir Peter you generally stayed rolled over, though Mr Cameron picked himself up like a cartoon character who, flattened by a train, gets up and runs away.