Everywhere you looked in the Lords there were vast expanses of empty seats. Two Queen’s speeches in as many months is at least one too many. Especially when the first one was just a political stunt that was never intended to be implemented. This time the peers were voting with their feet. Just 10 Labour lords could be bothered to pull out the ermine and take up their places.

There were rather more Tories, but still not enough to prevent the upper chamber from becoming an echo chamber. There’s going to be plenty of room for Nicky Morgan when she gets over her surprise at being given the peerage she knew she was getting months ago. And also for Zac Goldsmith, once the minor inconvenience of his previous non-dom tax status had been ruled out. The rewards for failure have never been higher. We now have two unelected ministers in the People’s Government. Lucky, lucky us.

Even the Queen was staging her own dirty protest at having her time wasted. Hell, didn’t the government know that the last Thursday before Christmas was the day she traditionally headed off for Sandringham? This time she had given most of her retainers the day off, had dispensed with the state coach in favour of the company Rolls and just pulled on the shabby green coat that had been hanging by the door. Her face never broke from a scowl throughout. She couldn’t have made her feelings any more plain.

Jeremy Corbyn was also wishing he was elsewhere. On the walk from the Commons to the Lords, Boris Johnson repeatedly tried to engage the Labour leader in small talk. Corbyn looked as if he was about to be physically sick, walking jerkily like a broken cyborg, his head fixed rigidly ahead as he steadfastly avoided any conversation. It was petty and peevish, but the best he could manage under the circumstances.

Boris shrugged and smirked to himself. This was his day and nothing was going to spoil it. He was world king at last. Free to do whatever he wanted, safe in the knowledge that no one could stop him. If he wanted to decriminalise stealing a journalist’s mobile phone or offer an amnesty to anyone who was late with their child support payments, then he was free to do so. Right now, he was the supreme leader. It would take time for the people to find out that all the People’s Government could be relied on for was to let them down. And by the time they did, it would be far too late.

A couple of hours later, the Commons had reconvened for the opening of the debate on the Queen’s speech. Tory Tracey Crouch kicked things off with a few good-natured panto jokes. The MPs who get asked to propose the humble address are usually those whose careers are considered to be behind them, she said. Pause. “I’d feel rather more reassured if the prime minister shouted back, ‘Oh no it isn’t!” she continued. Boris merely ignored her. You win some, you lose some.

Seconding the motion, Conservative MP Eddie Hughes, made his speech without notes. He started well enough but quickly lost his audience. He complained that the previous speaker had always restricted him to two-minute slots. After this, Lindsay Hoyle will probably reckon that John Bercow had been too indulgent. “I know what you’re thinking?” Hughes said with a flourish. We all did. Shut up and sit down.

None of the main contenders for the Labour leadership were in the Commons for the occasion. Nor were most of the other backbench MPs; and those that were soon wished they weren’t. It can only be Corbyn’s minders that have prevented him from standing down for an interim replacement already. As each day passes, Corbyn looks increasingly miserable. His voice is listless, his existential futility almost tangible. With each sentence he utters, he further demotivates and depresses his party. Now, even the Tories consider him an irrelevance. Not even worth the effort of a heckle or an intervention. He sat down to near total silence.

Then came Boris. The prime minister has been instructed to be on his best behaviour and not to gloat but he just can’t do it. After a brief attempt at “unite the nation” rhetoric – the “trust me” line has never gone down well in any of Boris’s relationships – Johnson quickly lapsed into charmless insincerity. It was so charming the way Corbyn believed the silly things he did, he exclaimed. Pity can be crueller than mockery.

Johnson then just went into full-on lying mode. Forty hospitals. Tick. Fifty-thousand nurses. Tick. Get Brexit Done. Tick. The bigger the lie, the more the Tories loved him. He wanted to restore public trust in politics. Said the man who has built his whole career and campaign style on destroying it. “If you can’t trust the Daily Telegraph, who can you trust?” he asked. How about a paper the prime minister hasn’t lied in.

Eventually Boris got so carried away that he went for the biggest lie he could think of. He would build the bridge between Northern Ireland and Scotland that every civil engineer had said was technically impossible. The Tory benches went moist in a collective orgasm.

This is the new present. It’s also the future. Boris Uncontained. Until it all inevitably goes hideously wrong. And then he’ll just walk away. Untouched. Untouchable. As the SNP’s Ian Blackford got up to reply, Boris merely pulled out his phone and started playing online CandyCrush with Classic Dom. This One Nation stuff was never meant to include the Scots.

John Crace’s new book, Decline and Fail: Read in Case of Political Apocalypse, is published by Guardian Faber. To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £15, online orders only. Phone orders min. p&p of £1.99.