The National:

Ooft. There’s brutal and then there’s getting-your-arse-handed-to-you-by-the-man-who-created-Malcolm-Tucker brutal.

And that’s exactly what happened to Andrew Bowie, the perennially hapless Tory MP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine. 

This North East loon is so obsequiously loyal to the party that he practically gets taken for walkies by the whips. 

He's yet to meet a Tory idea/policy/plot/utterance that he doesn't think is brilliant.

This is a man who took his loyalty to hitherto unknown levels of masochism by working for Theresa May as a private parliamentary secretary.

Yesterday he took to Twitter to express how absolutely, utterly fantastic Boris Johnson’s Internal Market Bill is.

Yep, the Internal Market Bill that’s been rubbished by all five of the living former Prime Ministers, and just about everyone who’s not a fan of breaking international law. 

READ MORE: David Cameron becomes fifth former PM to condemn Boris Johnson's Brexit plans

“Our first duty as a Government, our first duty as a Parliament, is to protect the integrity of our United Kingdom,” he whimpered. 

“That is what the UK Internal Market Bill is designed to do. It protects jobs. It protects businesses. It strengthens the Union. It is good for Scotland.”

Armando Iannucci, the Scots satirist responsible for the Thick of It, In the Loop, Veep, The Death of Stalin and The Personal History of David Copperfield, was having none of it. 

Why, he quite reasonably asked, had Bowie so slavishly and previously told us how good the Brexit deal was that Boris Johnson now wants to override?

“Why then did you agree, stand for election on, and vote into law the Deal already agreed with the EU, you duplicitous chamber fodder?” Iannuccie asked.

Bowie did not respond.