Like most Americans, Yr Wonkette has only the vaguest idea of how Britain's Parliament works. We believe it has something to do with owls. Currently, Parliament is in, on, or adjacent to a bit of a sticky wicket because of The Brexit, because Prime Minister Boris Johnson has made it his goal in life to force the UK to leave the European Union without any formal deal, by October 31. Unfortunately for Johnson (and WTF-unately for Britain as a whole), his Conservative Party (also known as the "Tories" or "Those Fookin' Gobshites") lost its majority in Parliament yesterday when Conservative MP Phillip Lee bailed on the party and literally walked to the other side of the House of Commons to sit with the Liberal Democrats. So much for the Tories' one-seat majority! (Don't worry, there's no relation between Lee's changing seats and the speech being made in the video below, as far as we can tell.)

As they say in Old Blighty, it's a quite the load of kippers, or bollocks, or something!

For a nuanced look at how all the tumult in Parliament might actually be a sign of British politics working the way it should, see this fine 'splainer in The Atlantic, which explains that the main thing to keep in mind is that the "fundamental tenet of the British constitution, then, is that Parliament is sovereign—and therefore no Parliament can bind the next," and so a certain amount of crazy is just how things work. That's reassuring, except that since 2016 and the Brexit vote, Parliament itself isn't particularly in control, and with Lee's defection, things just got weirder. Boris Johnson will call new elections, and even that may get very silly, especially if no party is able to form a majority after the elections. Or if Johnson decides -- in defiance of convention, but there's no law stopping him -- to hold the elections after the Brexit deadline of October 31. The situation, as they say, remains fluid. Mostly gin, we think.

Fortunately, now that we've gotten the serious Brexit stuff out of the way, we can now just sit back and enjoy THIS bit of Parliamentary strangeness, in which Parliament Speaker John "Orrrrrr-daaaaaaah" Bercow tells MP Michael Gove to act with a bit of goddamn decorum, sir!

'BE A GOOD BOY!' John Bercow slams Michael Govewww.youtube.com

Bercow asked Gove to try to remain at least as well-behaved in Parliament as he is when he shows up for parent-teacher conferences, or all-you-can-eat crumpet feeds, we don't know:

I say to the Chancellor of the Duchy [Gove], that when he turns up at our children's school as a parent, he's a very well-behaved fellow. He wouldn't dare behave like that in front of Colin Hall [the school] and neither would I.

Don't gesticulate, don't rant, spare us the theatrics, behave yourself. Be a good boy young man - be a good boy.

Yr Wonkette was delighted by the excuse to do some political nostalgia, because who could forget Andrew Breitbart's call for civility outside CPAC in 2012, when he yelled at some Occupy protester, "BEHAAAAVE YOURSELVES! BEHAAAAVE YOURSELVES!"

Andrew Breitbart Loses It At Occupy Protesterswww.youtube.com

To be sure, Bercow's admonition to Gove loses a bit in volume and verbosity when compared to Breitbart's rant, helpfully transcribed at the time by Seth Abramovitch at the Atlantic:

Behave yourselves! Behave yourselves! Behave yourselves! Behave yourselves! Behave yourselves! Behave yourselves! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! You are freaks and animals! You are freaks and animals! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Learn to behave yourselves! Stop raping people! Stop raping people! Stop raping people! Stop raping the people! You freaks! You filthy, filthy, raping, murdering freaks!

The intellectual inspiration for modern conservative journalism, ladies and gents.

Also, because Bercow mentioned "our children's school" -- and even named it -- some tabloids have insisted Bercow had disgracefully dragged Gove's children into a political fracas, and what a shame, sir, what a shame! Astute fact checkers will note Bercow only mentioned the school, not the children, and brought it up as a contrast to Gove's conduct in Parliament. (And the Washington Post's fact checker will complain Bercow failed to provide video of Gove at a school meeting to support his point.)

In a tweet, Gove's wife was happy to jump on that spin.

What better political use of your children than to claim an opponent (who never mentioned the children) has shamelessly made political use of your children?

In conclusion, we like Parliament a lot better than Congress, because it's nuts, but nuts in a different way.

[NPR / Atlantic]

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