The circus rolled back into town on Wednesday. For the matinee there were frenzied routines performed by acrobats trying out new versions of old tricks. In a Westminster committee room, a former prime minister ducked and dived, bobbed and weaved, in a sad attempt to avoid his removal from parliament over allegations he misled the Commons about booze-ups on his turf while he was banning families and friends from attending funerals and wakes.
In the chamber, a back-to-the-future Brexit rebellion was brewing. Three former Tory leaders, Boris Johnson (him again), Liz Truss and Sir Iain Duncan Smith announced they would vote against the Windsor framework, Rishi Sunak’s deal with the European Union on the Northern Ireland protocol.
It is typical that Johnson, who agreed
