There’s nothing wrong with Jacob Rees-Mogg lying down in the Commons

If you are a journalist covering politics this year, every moment is a bad moment to take a holiday. I took a short one last week in search of grouse and arrived at Hunthill, the proud Scottish fastness of our host Henry Keswick, to find that Boris Johnson had promised to prorogue parliament. Since the party included a cabinet minister, another Member of Parliament etc, it all felt a bit like a John Buchan novel. As I watched the beaters approach us across the moor, I imagined it as the sort of scene Buchan describes so well in which the appearance of seemingly innocent sport on the hill is in fact the approach of something dangerous to the safety of the realm. The MP who, though of impeccable lineage, has unsound views on Brexit, had quietly slipped away. Was foul play afoot?

It was. Each faction in this contest daily accuses the other of ‘constitutional outrage’.