Were these the two women who could one day save our country? Kemi Badenoch dominated the Westminster day by talking sternly about defence, first at a livery hall near London Bridge, then with an urgent question in the Commons.

How commanding she has become. Rows of men sit at her feet, gulping as she dissects problems and throws quivering giblets into a bucket.

At a select committee later, we had the first appearance by Dame Antonia Romeo, new Cabinet Secretary. Quick-witted, she flashed her teeth (there are plenty of them) and talked fast. Whitehall jargon aside, she was less constipated than the no-can-do Normans who preceded her in recent years. Sir Keir Starmer had fled to the G7 summit – two nights in balmy Evian, and he will miss tomorrow’s PMQs, too.

With Nigel Farage off-radar and Sir Edward Davey busy blowing up his water-wings, Mrs Badenoch had things much to herself. She therefore made a lot of noise about John Healey’s resignation as Defence Secretary.

‘Things are not fine,’ she told the crowd of about 200 Conservative supporters at Glaziers’ Hall.

‘No Defence Secretary has ever resigned in this way.’ Rachel Reeves was ‘pathetic’ in refusing to attend cost-cutting meetings. The Cabinet was ‘not up to the job’.

In a large room we blunt nibs were seated far from the stage. Mrs Badenoch, who is short, still managed to compel. She has a deliciously creamy voice and the eyes flash like those of a pre-talkies Hollywood actress. It’s not quite Gloria Swanson or Clara Bow but she uses her jellies vividly to convey amazed exasperation.

Word of the day was ‘seriousness’. Her opponents lacked it. She laid claim to it repeatedly.

She was asked about a Labour backbencher’s decision to reintroduce the assisted dying Bill. This met with a growl. To opt for such a Bill when the Government was collapsing and the former Defence Secretary was saying the country was not safe was, she concluded, unserious.

‘It shows the kind of people who sit on the Labour benches. They are silly, full of fatuous gimmicks like the summer-of-sex proposed by that Labour MP, what’s her name?’ She looked at the front row and someone – was it you, Sir Melvyn Stride? – must have made a nibbling gesture. ‘Samantha Niblett!’ said Kemi, thankful for the assistance. There was enough contempt in those five syllables to shrivel a prize bull’s scrotum.

As she eviscerated the socialists’ unseriousness she did not bounce about or shout. The analysis was delivered calmly in that brandy Alexander basso voice. On finishing, she shimmered out like a queen and the audience could finally gulp, and blink.

No wonder Dan Jarvis sent an underling to the Commons mid-afternoon to answer Mrs B’s urgent question on defence investment. Mr Jarvis yesterday plainly saw his job as Secretary of State for Self-Defence.

And then to Mrs Romeo. She and her five – five! – aides were waiting in the corridor outside the public administration committee hearing. A clerk told them ‘witnesses, please’. Mrs Romeo, without looking at him, replied: ‘With you in a couple of minutes’. My, my. Grander than a mere committee of MPs.

Once it was convenient she eased herself behind the witness table and burbled to them with confidence and an easy charm. She has one of those pukka voices that can not quite pronounce the letter R. Californian uplift, too. Words such as ‘delivewy’ and ‘pwiowities’ ended on a rising tone, as if she was checking that they were still stocked in the club cellar.

Cliches were deployed – at one point she admitted that she might need to ‘stwengthen the delivewy architecture awound the pwime minister’ – but they skittered off her quick tongue and she had the grace to smile while spouting such wubbish. A sense of the ridiculous is rare in a Cabinet Secretary and she is a big improvement on the last one. But does she talk too much? Garrulousness can be the ally of indiscretion.