Mark Francois, the bumptious Tory MP, has been one of the incidental pleasures of Brexit. You may recall call that Francois said the country would explode if we hadn’t left the EU by Halloween.

I’ve checked and the country hasn’t exploded. Boris Johnson isn’t dead in a ditch either, although I keep looking into that muddy rut.

As for Francois, from the deepening puce of his face he could explode at any minute, so best stand back. If Farrow & Ball are looking for a new colour, they should scan a photo of his furious visage and bring out a paint called Ox Blood on College Green or something.

That’s where Francois seems to live nowadays, bumble-bumming between the cameras outside the Houses of Parliament, an over-boiled kettle made too solid flesh.

Still, entertaining as he is, Francois is a but a bit-player on this sorry stage. Boris Johnson sits at the eye of the storm – a tempest mostly of his own making.

Yesterday, Johnson failed in his latest bid to get a snap election, but will try again for a fourth time this afternoon. Yesterday’s wheeze tripped over the rules of the Fixed Term Parliament Act of 2011 – as smuggled under the sheets by the Lib-Dems during their love-in of convenience with the Tories.

Johnson told the BBC the other day that we needed “to be released from subjection to a parliament that has outlived its usefulness”.

An anonymous No 10 source, that curse of our politics right now, then lobbed another brick into the pool, telling reporters: “If parliament refuses to allow Brexit and refuses to allow an election, then what’s the point of parliament?”

Johnson says this parliament must go because it is “dysfunctional”. The thing is, this parliament isn’t dysfunctional – it’s just not functioning the way Johnson wants it to. It even functioned well enough, on his terms, to see the beginning of the end of Brexit – only Johnson then stopped the withdrawal agreement bill, to which he had allocated three measly days in the House, insisting instead on an election on his terms.

This all chimes with his posho-thug attempts to upend the norms of political life in this country, tearing up the usual laws, rules and procedures because they don’t do what he demands.

Johnson didn’t want parliament to discuss or probe his agreement – almost certainly because he didn’t want anyone reading the small print. He wanted a hurried agreement, no questions asked.

He wants his election in the hope he can then smuggle through an even harder Brexit than he is owning up to. Brexit remains essentially a hard-right plot to undo British life, dressed up with a swag of sovereignty to fool the masses (and a spot of xenophobia to charm the charmless).

That isn’t how parliament operates, and this one should stand firm against a prime minister on the make. Better still, this parliament should deny Johnson his election. Sadly, that seems unlikely as Jeremy Corbyn has just issued a statement saying Labour will support an early poll.

In this morning’s newspapers, to conflate two unflattering headlines, Corbyn is the snookered chicken of British politics. Snookered by his indecision over Brexit (or his even-handed and mature brilliance, if you believe the faithful) and his reluctance to call the election he has always said he wants.

The opinion polls are dire for Labour – a depressing thought when you consider just how appalling this bunch of Tories are. The faithful still believe the saintly Corbyn will gather up his robes, or his grey suit, and win round voters once he starts canvassing. That’s what (almost) happened in 2017; and it can happen again, or so they say.

Corbyn has been around for a while now as leader, and the danger is that voters will now have fixed their views about him. If Labour loses, the Corbyn Experiment will be over for sure.

Whatever happens, the BBC will soon be dragging out Brenda from Bristol – “You’re joking, not another one!” – that unlikely star of the 2017 election. As too will I tomorrow in a lecture about vox-pops.

Brenda, by the way, has a point: we have far too many general elections in this country, and they don’t seem to solve much.