I watched, albeit belatedly, the exchanges at PMQs yesterday. It is unusual for me to watch the proceedings â I have long since thought of them as representing some of the worst aspects of parliament and find it offensive that these cretins cannot discipline themselves in front of the watching world, even though they cannot be unaware of the impressions they are making.
Even by the low standards of parliament, though, yesterday was different â more particularly we were treated to an egregious example of the contempt in which the prime minister holds parliament, provoking several interventions by speaker Lindsay Hoyle who eventually had to order Johnson to sit down, and thereby shut up. "You may be the prime minister of this country", Hoyle said, "but in this House I am in charge".
This extraordinary situation, in my view, marked a new low for the conduct of the institution which culminated in the usual noisy braying from the backbenches, with Hoyle observing:
I do not think today has done this House any good. I will be quite honest; I think it has been ill-tempered. I think it shows the public that this House has not learned from the other week. I need this House to gain respect, but it starts by individuals showing respect to each other.
For once, Hoyle â not the most charismatic of men â had it absolutely right. The House has not learned from its experience. But then it never does. And he's right to say that he needs the House to gain respect. And in so doing, he acknowledges the truth, that many of us regard the Commons and the MPs therein with utter contempt.
There, Hoyle is only partially right in saying that it the House starts by individuals showing respect to each other. More importantly, they should start by showing respect for their voters, of which there is absolutely no sign at present.
Indicative of that is a comment made by multiple observers, to the effect that we are only a few days away from a terrorist bomb incident by a failed asylum seeker, in the context of tens of thousands of unvetted potential terrorists reaching our shores in dinghies from France. Yet not one MP, nor the leader of the opposition, thought to raise the issue with the prime minister.
It is perhaps indicative of a more general disconnect between parliament and the electorate that the MPs quite clearly believe that "sleaze" is the most important issue on the agenda. It is certainly the issue over which they are obsessing, and to which recently they have devoted a considerable amount of time.
Within the population, though, I would hazard that, although most view the shenanigans of MPs with distaste, the accusations of misconduct do not register amongst voters' highest priorities. Rather, this sort of behaviour is already "priced in", reflecting their generally low expectations of their elected representations.
In respect of this PMQ session, one should recall that this is the first opportunity that MPs have had to question the prime minister from the floor of the House on the outcome of CoP26. But even where MPs can be bothered to address an issue which is of concern to a large number of voters â either for or against â the input is singularly tone deaf.
Thus we have Andrew Jones, the Tory MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, address Johnson with the assertion that "Domestic heating accounts for 30 percent of UK carbon emissions", going on to say: "I support the Government's incentive scheme to replace old gas boilers with environmentally friendly alternatives".
"However", he continues, "now that we are building more homes than we have been for many years, can we build on the success of COP26?" What progress, he asks, "is being made on the standards for new-build homes, to make sure that they are fit for the future?"
Typically of an MP these days, he gets his core fact wrong. I have previously recorded that domestic heating accounts for 15 percent of total emissions while the latest government report puts total domestic emissions at 20.8 percent. These, however, also include emissions from consumer product use, cooking, garden machinery, and fluorinated gases released from aerosols and metered dose inhalers. A 15 percent allocation for heating. Therefore, is entirely reasonable, which means that Jones has actually over-stated the emissions by a factor of two.
As a Tory MP, though â whose constituents might be counted as amongst those most worried about the onset of "net zero", and the costly replacement of gas boilers â one might have thought he could have pointed out that the impact of eliminating every domestic gas boiler in the land would contribute a meagre 0.00225ºC drop to the global temperature â assuming this could be measured.
Almost to the man â and woman â though, MPs have swallowed the
"climate change" Kool Aid, even to the extent of burbling about the "success" of CoP26. This leaves almost entirely unrepresented those who question the wisdom of wrecking the economy for the sake of this obsession.
But while such dross escape without notice, for the time being, not so the oafish Johnson. His past, it seems, it finally catching up with his - Parris's observations are beginning to take shape.
This gives the Guardian'sJohn Crace an opportunity to excel, having noted the gaps on the Tory benches during PMQs.
During the good times, he writes, "it's standing room only for prime minister's questions, but these days the three rows behind the government frontbench are barely half full. And itâs almost certainly not because dozens of Tory MPs are preoccupied with their second jobs: it's because they are profoundly pissed off with the way Boris Johnson is doing his first one".
Asked why there were so many empty spaced behind Boris at PMQs, The Sun recorded one senior backbench Tory saying: "It's a sense of dumb exhaustion", adding: "The party is at each other's throats and what for? A U-turn on a U-turn".
Later, Johnson presented himself to the liaison committee for questioning, where Crace takes up the story:
Johnson smirked nervously, but somewhere in his subconscious was a growing realisation that the comedy was turning to a personal tragedy. He was the chancer who had been found out by his peers. Even his own backbenchers had turned on him. Sick of U-turn after U-turn and U-turns on U-turns. Taken for mugs and made not just to look stupid, but corrupt with it.
As a little taster of his treatment, Crace recounts Labour's Chris Bryant "quietly and methodically" taking advantage of the prime minister's discomfort to expose what everyone had long suspected. "That Boris hadn't bothered to read the Owen Paterson report before whipping his MPs to ignore it. Just too much hassle. Too much work". Once again, policy had been constructed on the hoof, "reacting to whatever shitshow had been going on at the time".
Crace concludes by describing the response as "chaos". Johnson, he says, had never given much of a shit about his own MPs. But they had cared about him. Especially, the âred wallâ MPs elected in 2019. These creatures â like most of the party - "had believed he was a winner". Now, Crace writes, "the last of his stardust had been brushed away. And all that was left was an emperor in all his pallid nakedness. From now on, it was every man and woman for themselves".
Even then, Johnson's torture wasn't over. After facing his own MPs at the 1922 committee, one of his formerly loyal followers texted that he "looked weak and sounded weak", adding that his "authority is evaporating".
As Parris forecast, the prime minister's final demise might take some time but, for the moment, at least we can be fairly well assured that we have seen the last of peak Johnson.
