“Gandalf is in the House!” texted a Labour MP. I assumed this was a reference to Sir Desmond Swayne, the white-maned warlock of New Forest West, but it turned out to be a theatrical knight, Sir Ian McKellen, who was curled up in a corner of the chamber where honoured guests are sometimes allowed to sit. Lacking the elf eyes of Legolas, he periodically pulled out a pair of opera glasses observe proceedings more closely.

Johnson was of course also absent, having quit the field before battle had even been joined

For the most part, though, the interesting thing about the debate on Boris Johnson’s censure was who wasn’t there. The chamber was debating a report that a prime minister had deliberately and repeatedly misled Parliament. This is quite a big deal. And yet there were barely 40 Conservative MPs present. There were more people in the public gallery.

Penny Mordaunt, required to be present in her role as Leader of the House, sat alone on the front bench. Of the prime minister, currently believed to be Rishi Sunak, there was no sign. No ministerial colleagues had come to support her. It was a display of cowardice that will long live in the mind.

It’s not, of course, that Sunak or any of his ministers want Johnson back. They’re as pleased as anyone to see him gone. They just don’t want to take responsibility for the decision, and they were confident the opposition would do the work for them. They have outsourced their consciences to Labour, and risk finding that the voters want the party to take the rest of their jobs, too.

Speaking of courage, Johnson was of course also absent, having quit the field before battle had even been joined. It being his birthday we can only hope that he was at a party. It is a genuine mystery that anyone would want to lay down their reputation in defence of such a man, but few have had as much success as him at surrounding themselves with dupes.

If Johnson always has a fool to hand, though, that doesn’t make him one himself. Perhaps that’s why he urged his supporters not to take part in the debate. It may be that he sensed that, however genuinely they hoped to help, they would struggle to do so.

But some people are not to be deterred.  Which brings us to Lia Nici. The MP for Great Grimsby was the first person to speak in Johnson’s defence. It was well over an hour into the debate. We had heard from Mordaunt, who spoke in defence of the Privileges Committee’s report, and urged the House to support “the right not to be misled and the right not to be abused when carrying out our duties.” We had heard from Harriet Harman, the committee chair, who slapped down “Sir” Jacob Rees-Mogg when he asked her why she hadn’t resigned over the appearance that she was biased. She had consulted Johnson’s government at the time, she revealed, offering to step aside, and been asked to carry on.

Now we were to hear from Nici. She revealed that she knew Johnson to be innocent. We held our breath. Was she about to reveal previously unknown – and also Covid-compliant – alibi? Sadly not. “There were some people who had parties,” she said. “And those people were unelected officials.” These officials hadn’t told him about the parties, she said. Not even the ones he attended, presumably.

Why stay, when you’ve witnessed the birth of a new parliamentary star?

Suddenly we realised where she was going. The problem was his advisers! To fans of the idea that the former prime minister was an innocent let down by the liars around him, it was as exciting as hearing the opening chords of Born To Run at a Bruce Springsteen concert. But better was to come. Jake Berry leaped to his feet to point out that the report said that when the prime minister had told Parliament that the rules had been followed at all times, ordinary people would have assumed this meant there were no parties. “Boris Johnson cannot be held responsible for what people thought he may have meant!” he declared. Indeed, perhaps the problem hadn’t been the advisers. Perhaps what the prime minister had really needed was a better public.

On Nici went. The prime minister had been advised that no rules had been broken. How was he to know that the things had had gone to and spoken at were in breach of the rules he had announced? Perhaps he had needed better lawyers. Although he had some awfully expensive ones that we paid for, and they don’t seem to have helped.

Why, she asked, had the security staff in Downing Street not informed the prime minister about the parties? This was an excellent point. Why hadn’t the doorkeepers warned Johnson about his own actions? If only they’d spoken up, he would have known! Poor Boris, he’d needed better caretakers! What about the people managing Number 10, she asked? Not the actual person in charge, obviously. But other, lesser people. He had needed better middle managers!

Finally Labour’s Jess Phillips rose. “Does she think that there’s any chance that Boris Johnson could also have lied to her?” Nici looked troubled by this idea. “No, I don’t think he did,” she replied. She was, she said, a very good judge of character. Although, she went on: “I’m not someone who’s followed Boris Johnson’s political or otherwise career for a long time.” This was the problem. Nici had needed a better search engine.

We would hear later from other Fools For Boris. Rees-Mogg told us there was not “a shred of evidence” that Johnson had lied, he insisted, which is true, if you discount all the things that Johnson said and did. “Sir” Bill Cash… well, it was hard to follow, but essentially his argument was that it was actually impossible for Johnson to have lied to Parliament. Although, Bill, it does seem possible to imagine it, if you try really hard.

McKellen, though, had left not long after Nici had finished speaking. Why stay, when you’ve witnessed the birth of a new parliamentary star? At least until the voters of Grimsby are consulted.