The phone rings... It's the anniversary of my most spectacular brain fade

In all of the coverage given to Rachel Reeves's tears in prime minister's questions, one thing got overlooked. Crying in the House of Commons is not unusual.

- John Crace's

Monday It just becomes news when it's the chancellor doing the crying. Even the financial markets take an interest: weird how a woman having a normal feeling can cause turmoil.

A day earlier, the new Labour backbencher, Marie Tidball, who is disabled, was on the verge of tears while she was speaking against her own party's welfare bill. No one raised an eyebrow.

The former Conservative MP Charles Walker was twice in tears in the chamber. The first in 2015 when David Cameron and William Hague tried to strong-arm him into trying to remove John Bercow as speaker; the second in 2022 during a vote on fracking. And those are just the ones I can remember sketching.

Then there is the crying that goes on off camera. MPs talk of being reduced to tears as whips and colleagues try to bully them into voting with their party in the lobbies. Most try to pass this off as part of the job. "Politicians need to have a thick skin," they say. Possibly, though you have to wonder at the hypocrisy.

We are told Reeves was crying over a personal matter. Though having an exceptionally bad week in one of the most stressful jobs imaginable and then hearing your boss refuse to back you during PMQs might make any of us cry. The last thing you'd want to do is to be pushed into a press conference the next day to show you're OK. That looked like an act of cruelty.

Tuesday It seems The Salt Path may not be all it was cracked up to be.