And there is only one possible name for this one. It has to be the Parliament of Pygmies, presided over as it is by the pygmy-in-chief, Speaker John Bercow, who, early in his period of office, was denounced by one infuriated Minister as a ‘sanctimonious, stupid dwarf’.

Ordinarily all this would be no more than matter for wry amusement. But the times are anything but ordinary. So strange are they, in fact, that the pygmies think they are giants and ape the gestures of the parliamentary greats of the past.