John Bercow’s ego trip lets May off the hook at PMQs

PMQs began with an announcement. The life president of the John Bercow fan-club rose from the Speaker’s chair to welcome a distinguished Dutch parliamentarian sitting up in the gallery. No one recognised the name of this blow-in from the land of windmills. But he is no doubt as important in his own domestic circle as Mr Bercow is in his.

Taxpayers will be thrilled to know that the Speaker makes pals on his overseas junkets. And how apt that a man of such humble stature has befriended a parliamentarian from the Low Countries. Mr Bercow spent most of the session demonstrating his mastery of events by interrupting MPs with his slim list of antiquarian heckles. ‘Calm yourself,’ ‘Take a rest, man’. ‘Honourable members must contain themselves.’ His favourite trick is to identify backbenchers who are wasting time by shouting a lot. He then redoubles the nuisance by shouting at them about how much time is wasted by one member shouting at another.

The party leaders broke new ground today.