YESTERDAY was a red ­letter day in the weirdly amorphous world of parliamentary committees.

It’s been ages since they had a proper bastard to have a pop at, that they were not in some way beholden to.

So when senior Google executive Matt Brittin took his seat they were positively salivating at the opportunity to showboat and set out their credentials as tough seekers of the truth and paragons of probity, both of which are sadly lacking most of the time.

With very few honourable exceptions they have been pusillanimous in the probing, craven in their criticisms and, in the recent case of Tony Blair, fawning in their flattery.

You got a sense this time however that the gloves were off — even if successive governments had patently created the situation with their awe-struck attitude to power and money — and so it proved.

The issue at hand was, of course the shameful deal struck with Google by Chancellor George Osborne which saw the transnational agree to pay a paltry £130 million for 10 years of back tax.

Brittin told the committee that Google had made profits of £106 million on revenues of £1.18 billion in Britain in the last 18 months and that 11 per cent of the company’s global sales to customers were made here.

Committee chair Meg Hillier told him: “Do you hear the anger and frustration out there that with these huge figures, you settled for a figure of £130m?”

In fact, I think you’ll find it was Osborne who “settled” for the meagre amount — plus some freebie tickets to the Superbowl — but that apparently was by-the-by.