LET’S talk about jingoism, satire and getting it up you. I apologise unreservedly for the last mentioned, but don’t know how I can avoid it. Only the messenger, don’t you know?

I’ve always thought having it up you a terribly rude expression, but it was the alleged family show Dad’s Army that started it – admittedly referring to bayonets, but no less wince-inducing for that – and I’m afraid it came up in the House of Commons yesterday, and out of no more respectable a mouth than that of the Prime Minister.

First, be it noted that Parliament breaks up for Easter recess today, just over a year from the start of the first Covid-19 lockdown. Society has seen many changes in that time and, in a sense, these are mirrored in the Commons.

Non-speaking MPs now wear masks, which has the merit of dulling their braying. And there are far fewer of them present. That said, the place has grown in rowdiness in recent weeks, including that exaggerated laughter thang that they do and, yesterday, the Speaker had to intervene as he couldn’t hear.

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More discombobulating, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has appeared increasingly confident, giving the discombobulating impression that he’s on top of his brief, apart from the odd porkie and mangling up the name and constituency of the Scottish Tory leader.

Then we had Tory backbench MPs speaking up for dockyard jobs and sick children yesterday, while Labour waved the Union flag and sought the support of retired colonels in the Shires by defending the armed services.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is a decent stick who makes a fair fist of things, but it’s only when the SNP’s Westminster leader, Ian Blackford, comes on remotely from Skye that you get any real sound and fury. He rarely mentions independence, though, while the PM seems obsessed by it.

But let’s join Labour’s barmy army first. Sir Keir’s criticism of alleged cuts to the military elicited a withering response from Johnson: “I think it’s frankly satirical to be lectured about the size of the army when the shadow foreign secretary herself only recently wrote that the entire British army should be turned into a kind of peace corps.”

Still, he added: “It’s wonderful to hear the new spirit of jingo that seems to have enveloped some of the Labour benches. They don’t like it up ’em, Mr Speaker.”

Sir Keir retorted, “Let’s try this for up ’em”, and proceeded to aver that voters couldn’t trust the Conservatives to support the armed services (uproar). Alas, in seeking to highlight how a reduced army might fare, he fell into a fatal strategic trap, citing expert military opinion that “we wouldn’t be able to re-take the Falklands”. Oh dear. The Falklands: Tory territory. Sir Keir should never have sent his metaphorical army in to occupy these windsept islands.

Johnson said it was “hilarious” to be lectured by Labour about the Falklands but then went too far himself, in changing the subject to the police and claiming that Labour were “out on the streets at demonstrations shouting ‘Kill the bill!’”

The Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, intervened to say he did not believe any MP supported such riots, which is surely correct. But it’s probably true to say too that, while wrapping himself in the Union flag, some of Sir Keir’s party are standing behind him still waving the red one and, while doubtless not involved in riots, their calls for peace corps, coming out of Nato and the like will always hamstring his new patriotic battle plan.

Saltire-waving now, as the SNP’s Mr Blackford drew attention to his colleague Neil Gray “doing the right thing” in stepping down as an MP to stand for election at Holyrood, while Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross was also standing for Holyrood but refusing to step down as an MP. Was this, Mr Blackford asked, one more instance of Tories thinking “greed is good”?

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When on unsure ground, Boris has a habit of mumbling and slurring his words and, at first hearing, on this occasion he appeared to say: “I think my honourable friend Murray Ross is doing an excellent job …” On second hearing, it’s clear he referred to “my honourable friend, the member for Moray and Ross”, which was still a blunder as Mr Ross is just the member for Moray. Or could it be that Ross Murray is the member for Douglas? Who cares? To Johnson, they all sound like characters out of Braveheart anyway.

At any rate, before the PM could change the topic to “another referendum for separation”, “Murray Ross” was trending on Twitter. Undaunted, Boris went on (and on) with his obsession about another independence referendum, declaring himself “amazed” that Mr Blackford hadn’t mentioned the subject.

“Maybe,” he surmised, “he’s getting nervous of singing that particular song.” Maybe it’s one singer one song, and Johnson is the one belting it out every week. Sir Keir, meanwhile, is giving it Rule Britannia.

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