I MUST say I’m enjoying the Speaker’s new style at PMQs. Lindsay Hoyle is clearly revelling in his power to mute Boris Johnson with the touch of a button, stopping just short of saying “that’s a nice video link you have there, Prime Minister. Would be a shame if anything were to happen to it...”

The reason for this week’s ticking-off isn’t the bully-in-chief deliberately getting anyone’s name wrong – it’s for getting up to one of his other usual tricks by responding to Keir Starmer’s interrogation with an unrelated question of his own.

“It actually is Prime Minister’s Questions, not Leader of the Opposition’s Questions,” interjects Lindsay Hoyle, but is that enough to silence the artless dodger? Of course not. “It’s a reasonable question, Mr Speaker,” he claps back.

Oddly enough, Hoyle does not agree that it’s reasonable to ask about Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour membership in response to a grilling about why the Prime Minister and his dishonourable friends are flagrantly disregarding the ministerial code.

No wonder he wants to change the subject – Keir Starmer has been keeping count of the number of promises he has broken, and uses each of his question to make the Prime Minister squirm. Johnson is happy to overlook bullying and harassment, as evidenced by his defence of Priti Patel; he’s failed to stop details about his government’s pandemic response being leaked; he’s overseen the misuse of taxpayers’ money by buying useless PPE; and he’s failed to avoid actual or perceived conflicts of interest.

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What does Johnson have to say to all this? That his ministers are doing an outstanding job! And all this stuff about ministerial code is mere trivia. So nothing to see here, let’s move on… Ian Blackford wants to know if the foreign aid budget will be protected as promised.

Johnson doesn’t answer this because Rishi Sunak will be along in a minute to say the answer is no.

We should be proud of our investment in vaccines, he says. We’re protecting poor people in other countries from Covid-19 – what more do they want? Food? Education? They should jolly well be grateful we’re keeping them alive.

If I might make a suggestion to Lindsay Hoyle for future interruptions, perhaps he could start bellowing “WHO IS SHE? THE CAT’S MOTHER?” every time the Prime Minister rudely refers to a female questioner.

Yes, the rules and conventions of this creaky old parliament might be out-dated and faintly ridiculous, but aren’t basic manners taught at Eton College? Three times in a row the vulgarian replied with “she’s right to call attention…”, “she’s asking an excellent question” and “she’s right to value key workers”.

Labour’s Tonia Antoniazzi was dignified with an “honourable lady” only to be told there is “more to come in just a minute if she’ll contain herself”.

What will his retort be next week? “Keep your knickers on, woman”? He might currently be sitting in a cupboard, but someone needs to remind Johnson this is a session of the UK Parliament, not a Bullingdon Club AGM.