Earlier in the week I was surprised to learn that the date the government has announced for the Queen’s speech clashes with a royal garden party but I think I now know why … the day after is Eton founder’s day, so half the cabinet would be unavailable.

During business questions I reminded the house that so far the government has only got 3,780 people onto its flagship universal credit scheme, which was sold as a way of transforming the lives of people on benefits. That is 0.3 per cent of the one million people Iain Duncan Smith was aiming for by now. So far £140m of public money has been written off – each user of the scheme costs taxpayers an incredible £160,000 and £34m has been wasted on IT systems that don’t work. I asked Andrew Lansley to arrange a statement from the Department for Work and Pensions so it can explain why the department is in complete and utter chaos.

On Wednesday the work and pensions select committee published a report which reveals that the bedroom tax is causing disabled people ‘severe financial hardship and distress’. This was followed by the Liberal Democrat president, Tim Farron, issuing a cynically choreographed announcement that the Liberal Democrats ‘no longer’ support the bedroom tax. In a typically Liberal Democrat fashion he has so far: voted for it, abstained on it, and voted against it!

Earlier this week the National Audit Office delivered a damning verdict on the Royal Mail firesale which has left the taxpayer shortchanged by hundreds of millions of pounds and given a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘Cable theft’. It is so indefensible that it has been described by one Tory MP as: ‘a debacle’, ‘unethical’ and ‘immoral’. Despite David Cameron’s feeble efforts to defend the indefensible this week, I reminded the house that if someone takes something worth 3.4 billion from you and sells it for two billion it is fairly obvious that you are not getting a good deal.

With all the incompetence this week it seems appropriate that we have had April Fool’s Day and some of the fake articles almost fooled me. I almost believed that Piers Morgan is the new press adviser to the Liberal Democrats. I was taken in by the idea that Alex Salmond would want his face on a new Scottish pound coin. But I could not believe that the chancellor’s best man made £36m from the Royal Mail firesale until I read reports that it is true …

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Angela Eagle is member of parliament for Wallasey, shadow leader of the House of Commons and writes the weekly Business of Parliament column for Progress. She tweets @AngelaEagle