Boris: Greetings, friends! And first, look, an admission. I know some of you are pretty angry over this sleaze business and I've got to admit that on a clear road, I crashed the car into a ditch. But, luckily, it was a soft landing because there was already a dead body in the ditch, namely mine, after I promised not to delay Brexit – which I did for a bit, and then didn't. Just like this standards malarkey. I then reversed out of the ditch, did a U-turn and unfortunately ran you all over, apart from those I'd thrown under the bus. So, it was a car crash. But this country has a long and proud history of crashes that took place but didn't really matter in the long run and we all recovered jolly quickly. Charge of the Light Brigade? Bit of a horse crash. Titanic – bit of a ship crash. Er… 1066 – bit of an arrow crash.

(Committee stop fighting briefly and reach unanimous agreement that the Prime Minister has lost the plot)

Boris: Ok, I admit it. My historical metaphor has blown up in my face and exploded Hindenburg-like in a fireball of hot air. So let's ditch the whole "car crash in a ditch" thing.

Red Wall MP: Let's ditch you instead!

Boris: Ah. Right… I can see you're pretty shirty, but I am here to reassure you that this government is back on track. You see, I shifted the metaphor there from road to rail…

Red Wall MP: Not in the bloody North, you haven't.

Boris: Whoops, time for a high-speed cancellation of that metaphor. We regret to announce the infinite delay of the HS2 analogy, in favour of a figure of speech involving a replacement bus…

Red Wall MP: Replacement boss, more like!

Boris: Hang on to your cloth cap, Mr Whippet! I do the jokes round here!

Red Wall MP: You are t' bloody joke, mate!

Boris: Cripes! Let's leave this train of thought – see what I did there? I've still got it! – and transport ourselves, if you will, back to a more comfortable topic, sleaze.

(Cheers from 30 Old Guard MPs hoping to hold on to their massive parliamentary consultancy roles)

Boris: Sorry, chaps. I'm going to have to ban all your second jobs.

Old Guard MP: Booo!

Boris: But not till next year and after lots of discussion and we probably won't do it anyway.

Old Guard MP: Hooray!!