The lockdown delay has triggered a constitutional crisis

It is not the Battle of Marston Moor, but it strikes me that we are now in something of a constitutional crisis following the Speaker’s dramatic outburst this afternoon. In response to points of order about the fact Boris Johnson is announcing lockdown changes in a press conference rather than to parliament, Hoyle said that he had been told no decisions had been taken only to find out that there was an embargoed document setting out what changes were coming. A visibly furious Hoyle declared from the chair that: ‘This House is being misled’.

Considering that misleading the House is a resigning matter, this is a remarkably serious accusation for the Speaker to level against Downing Street. It is not hard to follow it through to its logical conclusion; and I cannot think of a previous example of a Speaker accusing No. 10 of misleading the House. It is another sign of how bad relations between the Speaker and the Prime Minister have become.