There is that sensation passengers feel as an aircraft emerges from turbulence. The tension lifts, dark thoughts recede and, once again, a future seems attainable. Tory backbenchers lived that experience at Treasury questionson Tuesday. Relief merged with triumphalism infused with euphoria. No wonder they have been so keen to ban chemically produced legal highs. They have no use for them.
George Osborne was their hero and he strode to the despatch box in a dark blue suit, his Roman senator haircut unruffled; his calibration set to statesman serious, but with a schoolboyish smirk not far beneath.
Quickly to business, those Office for National Statistics figures showing the economy grew by 0.7% in the last quarter of 2013, meaning growth last year of 1.9%, the biggest increase since the financial crisis.
For the chancellor, for the Tory and Lib Dem benches, relief from the long-endured turbulence of that dogged Labour poll lead, infighting over Europe, the bashing over energy prices, the whacking over welfare. The chance to say the long-term economic plan is working. A chance to recast themselves as champions of carers and the low paid.
For Ed Balls and the Labour team, by contrast, an hour of almost unmitigated misery. Balls came with low expectations only to find he had been over-optimistic. He can handle the goading. The pugnacious shadow chancellor draws a sinister strength from Tory and Lib Dem goading. But how to cope with backbenchers high on the euphoria of life itself?
They roared their approval of Osborne from the outset, as he boasted of his figures and dared Labour benches to welcome them. "Twenty minutes in and not one of them has welcomed the good economic news," mocked Osborne.
Labour's Barry Sheerman promised to welcome the figures if only Osborne would stop blaming Labour for the economic crisis. Nothing doing. Osborne merely took a swipe at the absent Gordon Brown. The cocksure chancellor was in no mood for deals.
The Tories reached decibel levels that unnerved the Speaker. "Take a tablet. Restore your health," ordered Bercow. But they were way beyond that. Oohing, cooing, braying, gesturing, giggling; like an audience watching music hall. A few appeared to be showing Balls the single-digit salute beloved by testy Americans. In fact, they were gesturing upwards, mocking the flat hand movement he has used to indicate an economy flat-lining. He sat grim faced, cross-legged, as if trying to look through them. As if refusal to acknowledge them might transport them somewhere else. Occasionally, by way of distraction, he peered down at his order paper or shook his head ruefully. For variety, he stroked his chin.
"They are anti recovery, anti jobs, anti investment, anti the British people," Osborne declared to another wave of cheers. Not so much a parliamentary session for Tory MPs now, more a convivial social gathering. They joked, gossiped, nudged each other.
Simon Kirby, MP for Brighton Kempton and Peacehaven, one of those with digit upturned, laughed and slapped his thigh so hard that he may well have caused a bruise.
The longest and most joyful Tory cheer greeted the contribution after 45 minutes of Balls himself and the noise caused the Speaker to intervene again. "Be patient; you have the man at the box for whom you were waiting," he said. They might have said the same at the guillotines … In tennis, new balls come after the first seven games of a match and subsequently every nine, so patience is required".
Osborne who scarcely needed encouraging, also deployed a cheap name gag. "What they need on the other side of the House is new crystal balls," he said, and even that got a laugh. Euphoria does alter the senses.
"Very good chancellor. A joke about my name Balls," spat the Labour man sarcastically. But it was all part of the cross he would have to bear. He made the best of it.
After three years of "flatlining", the ONS figures were indeed "welcome", he said, but still, they mean little to "ordinary working people". They are worse off and, meanwhile, the rich get tax cut richer.
The government peddles dodgy figures, said Balls and, worst of all, it has failed on its own terms to deal with the deficit. But he was pretty much drowned out by heckles and the din of mass euphoria. A day to reflect that there will be other days.
