An hour of hilarity last night made the last three years of purgatory almost worth it.
The efforts by the hardest, crustiest elements of the gammon, the very crackling of Parliament, to dissuade the speaker from expediting the Cooper Bill was hilarious enough.
Bercow dismissing the ranting Peter Bone, a man in constant danger of being overwhelmed by his own suit, with ‘I have heard the honourable gentleman and his dulcet tones will stay with me for hours’.
In Bercowese this means ‘Shut up, you screeching gremlin.’
Then the vote. No deal killed by a majority of one. The only way it could have been more savoury would have been a tie with Bercow casting for ‘Aye’.
Followed by the final howls of outrage from the pork scratchings. First Mark Francois, the perpetually outraged amphibian who once went head to head in a semantic argument with Will Self and came third, behind Will Self’s shoes.
‘This is a rushed, ill considered process that affronts the constitution’ he squealed. (These may not have been his exact words, I was too busy monitoring his complexion in my chart of ‘shades of puce a human being shouldn’t be’). Rushed, ill-conceived and unconstitutional are, of course, terms no one could apply to the initial referendum.
Then Steve Baker ‘the hard man of Brexit’ reduced to hoping that the new act that stole away his stiff, hard, erect Brexit, and no doubt replaces it with a soft, wobbly, flaccid Brexit, would be closely scrutinised by the Lords. The self-appointed champion of Brexit wanting a group of unelected rule makers to over-ride the will of the sovereign parliament? Well I never.
But the pick of the bunch? Back to Frenchy Francois. ‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ he ejaculated. Poor, maroon Mark, the martyr of Brexit, Messiah of gammon, echoing Christ’s words on the cross.
All it needed was Jarvis Cocker to vault the Tory front benches and waft his arse in Francois’ general direction. I’m even quite surprised it didn’t happen.
