Seven former Speakers of the House of Commons have been executed. To judge by the looks on the faces of many on the government benches, John Bercow came dangerously close to becoming the eighth. For well over an hour of points of order that came dangerously close to outright entropy, Tory MPs were spitting blood about the Speaker’s decision to allow an amendment by the Conservative Dominic Grieve to force the government to have a vote on a Brexit plan B within three days if its plan A was rejected next Tuesday.

Cue absolute scenes. Constitutional outrage, yelled many MPs, working themselves up into an unpleasant shade of purple. A curious description of what appeared to most normal people as a relatively minor disagreement over parliamentary procedures. The cartoon Brexiter Mark Francois was particularly apoplectic. It was all a stitch-up. Bercow was a remainer to his core and he had only granted the amendment in the hope of making a no deal less likely.

Bercow was in his element, becoming ever more pompous and self-important in his mannerisms. Francois had been right to say that the original motion said no motion could be moved other than by a minister of the crown, but this was an amendment that didn’t need to be debated. So tough. If the Commons didn’t like the amendment then it could always vote it down. Not that it would, because Bercow wasn’t stupid enough to select a contentious amendment that wouldn’t get passed. The government’s real problem wasn’t the amendment; it was its lack of a majority.

“This is just sophistry,” huffed Francois. It was nothing more than a total abuse of all that was good and pure about Commons procedure. Bercow beamed. The session was going even better than he had dared hope. There was nothing he liked more than being the centre of attention. This was to be the day when he extended his powers a little further.

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Labour MPs weren’t slow to come up with points of order of their own. Either to congratulate the Speaker for his singular display of judgment and brilliance; or to observe that it was a sweet irony that many Tories, who had made taking back control of the sovereignty of the British parliament the defining slogan of the leave campaign, were now so upset that the legislature was being handed greater control over the executive.

Be careful what you wish for. A few assorted opposition MPs were so mesmerised by proceedings that all they could do was stand up, make points of order demanding other people would stop standing up to make points of order so the Commons could get on with its business. Much more of this and we’d have disappeared through the looking glass. Not so much about taking back control as needing to get a sodding grip.

While all this was going on, the chief whip, Julian Smith, was busy punching texts into his phone and wondering what on earth he had done in a previous life to deserve his current one. He had lost a vote yesterday and he was now certain to lose another one today. He would also lose the Brexit vote next Tuesday and now the one the following week. Not least because there was no plan B to have a vote on. Come to think of it, there was barely a plan A. Whips were supposed to win votes, not lose them. He was becoming the Thinking Man’s Chris Grayling.

“Just do something,” he hissed to Andrea Leadsom, the leader of the house. Leadsom obliged by asking Bercow if he had consulted the clerks and, if so, whether they had agreed with his judgment. The Speaker confirmed he had consulted them but refused to divulge the contents of their conversation.

Then would he care to publish the clerk’s advice, Leadsom enquired, nudging the irony meters even further into the red as the government had spent the last two years trying to prevent details of any of its Brexit analysis and negotiations from being made public. Bercow beamed. If it was all the same to the house, he’d rather keep his discussions private.

He shrugged. He knew he was winging it a bit, but what the hell? He was on a roll and he’d got away with it so far. What was the purpose of precedent, if not to be broken from time to time? Hell, if everything had stayed the same since the middle ages, he’d have been a dead man long ago. And if he could do his bit to save the country from a no-deal Brexit then so much the better.

On and on it went. Jacob Rees-Mogg made a point that was only intelligible to him and was almost certainly incorrect, while Crispin Blunt accused Bercow of outright bias and urged him to stand down. No chance. Bercow had the numbers as the vote on the amendment would prove.