Corona Diaries: bring back the baying mob. The Member for Crawley tells it like it is

Some people will do anything to get a little attention, even if their talents are hardly worthy of notice. I know very little about Henry Smith, the Member of Parliament for Crawley, other what his Wikipedia biography says about him. It suggests that his career achievements are modest, to say the least.

But this little missive on Twitter will surely get the attention of his famously workaholic leader, one Boris Johnson:

The response to his ringing endorsement of the work ethic of his colleagues in other parties has ranged from contemptuous to unprintable.

He clearly senses that Boris is missing the baying mob that shrieks their approval of every bumbling reply he makes at Prime Minister’s Question Time. In return for his support to our beleaguered leader, no doubt Mr Smith is heading for minor ministerial post in Johnson’s government, from where I’m prepared to hazard a guess that he will sink without a trace.

But what do I know? Perhaps he has hidden talent, and is destined to become our next-but-one prime minister. Somehow I doubt it.

The point he makes is that some MPs oppose Parliament gathering into its usual raucous rabble from June 2, as opposed to continuing virtually. No doubt there are some lazy MPs who are currently isolating in some remote Scottish island which they happen to represent. Mr Smith, on the other hand, can demonstrate his relentless energy by hopping on the Gatwick Express for a 30-minute ride into London.

How the House plans to manage a fully populated session without having some members do handstands to avoid a dangerous proximity to their buddies is beyond me. And what example does a seething mass of MPs crowding on to the benches for an important debate set to the rest of us who are being told not to do likewise on Brighton Beach? That’s not for me to judge, since I shall be going nowhere near a beach or the Houses of Parliament in the coming weeks.

All I can say about Mr Smith is cometh the hour, cometh the loudmouth. My only sadness is that when he next enters the House of Commons, his smug expression will most likely be hidden by a face mask.

He does have some redeeming features. He once tweeted that Vladimir Putin was “a tosser”, though that was rather like calling Josef Stalin a prat. He is also an animal rights campaigner, which is a Good Thing, especially if you’re a badger.

I’m thinking about asking him to demonstrate his concern for animals by coming to my house and removing the squirrels that continue to make merry in my loft before I find a way of braining them.

But that would be silly, just as I was silly in emailing my local MP, who in a previous life was a mental health doctor, asking about what measures are in place to assure the sanity of his colleagues, who at the time seemed to be fraying at the edges somewhat. I was promised a reply by the email auto-response. That was in December last. I’m still waiting.

Thank goodness for politics. A source of endless amusement.