LABOUR was ''splitting apart'' on Europe, Foreign Secretary Douglas

Hurd claimed yesterday in what his Labour Shadow Gerald Kaufman gently

described as one of his occasional forays into party politics.

It was unfortunate for Mr Hurd that, as he made this point, Mr Norman

Tebbit ambled into the Chamber and planted himself down in the place

from where the evening before he had raised the banner of revolt.

The usually waspish Mr Kaufman, in emollient mood -- it is hard not to

find Mr Hurd agreeable -- advised the Foreign Secretary to return to the

soporific diplomat-speak which made the House so fond of him.

Mr Hurd took this in good part and Maastricht was largely forgotten as

he learnedly disputed with Mr Kaufman and Mr Denis Healey whether Russia

should automatically inherit the expiring Soviet Union's UN Security

Council seat and veto.

The Labour side for once urged delay and may well be right, given the

state of Mr Yeltsin's heart and the disposition of his deputy.

Tory MPs were distracted trying to work out if the previously

announced adhesion of Mr Bill Walker to the Tebbit camp meant that the

ensuing vote was not to be a walkover for the Government.

Nervous glances were cast towards the seat where Mrs Thatcher had sat

the previous evening nodding approval of Mr Tebbit's heretical

sentiments.

She was not occupying it yesterday, but the more credulous may have

feared that, like Banquo's ghost, she might unnervingly materialise if

not there then, even more horribly, in the Labour lobby.

Mr Hurd bravely claimed that Mr Kinnock had repeatedly been

''torpedoed'' by Ministers during his speech the day before. However, as

the speech has now past into Labour mythology as a masterpiece, at least

until the result of the next General Election is known, he was howled

down.

The life in fact had gone out of the great debate. Weary MPs gave the

impression of just wanting to vote and get away for Christmas.

Sir Geoffrey Howe did provide a warm if, naturally, low-key welcome of

the kind Mr Major was looking for. Mr Heath, having apparently concluded

that Mr Major had not been quite communitaire enough for his taste

decided, Mr Major not being Mrs Thatcher, not to make an issue of it and

did not speak.

Dr David Owen observed the proceedings for a while but, exhausted

perhaps by having told us so much about his life and opinions in

autobiography, denied or spared the House a survey of Maastricht.

A formerly keen European, Sir Peter Blaker confessed that his

enthusiasm for the Community had been modified by its eagerness to

legislate about such matters as the flavour of the British potato crisp.

''That is not federalism. It is socialism,'' he said indignantly.

A few Opposition MPs looked as if he had provided previously lacking

justification for their party's recent conversion to Europe. Can policy

turn on the flavour of a potato crisp? If it is a socialist crisp, it

possibly can.