HOUSE OF CADS

ORDER, Order...Oxbridge - the academic training ground for many of today’s politicians - has a lot to answer for.

Prime Minister’s Questions each Wednesday at noon (PMQs) has got out of hand so badly that the speaker, John Bercow, cannot hear himself speak, so to speak.

Neither, frustratingly, can we at home.

He calls it "the histrionics and cacophony of noise".

I switch on to see the PM and leader of the Opposition go to verbal war (cue music from Two Tribes from Frankie Goes to Hollywood).

The MPs stand up and sit down with their order papers and throw insults at each other.

Even seasoned speakers are not turning up. They, like the Speaker, are embarrassed.

But my patience is wearing thin, as Paul Weller once said, with these "braying sheep on my TV screen.”

Now Mr Bercow is worried it is putting off women MPs from attending the weekly 30-minute sessions.

The heckling and shouting from our Right Honourable friends is making a mockery of this important piece of Parliamentary democracy.

Apparently the decibel levels are now unacceptable. And one female Labour MP said PMQ was "very, very testosterone-fuelled.”

I agree. I am a life member of the Oxford Union debating society and I believe it’s where the trouble started. I met Boris Johnson many times (he asked me for tips on getting into journalism) – he was President and a master orator in the male-dominated chamber.

Other MPs learned their speech-making debuts at the Cambridge Union..

But that was when they were students – pretending to be MPs - witty and humorous but a lot of heckling went on. They relished scoring points off each other - and now in the real world they are still doing it.

MPS from all parties need to turn the volume down in the House of Commons – it’s okay in the many Westminster bars, but not for the all-too-brief PMQs.

We want to HEAR answers from our elected MPs to what is - and isn’t - being done for the country and relayed in a dignified, coherent manner.

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CREEPY CRAWLING

The BBC’s Royal Correspondent Nicholas Witchell should get a gong for his consistent toadying.

His reports from the current cushy down-under tour by William and family knows no bounds in his creepy court-crawling.

He informed us that Kate, sporting a patterned frock, “braved” a plane’s cockpit at an Australian Air Force base.

No !

She didn’t brave anything - she got a few creases to her dress and a photo opportunity.

Nicholas, it was far from “brave” -that term is only for the courageous pilots who step into these cockpits and fly the planes.

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GAME OF MOANS

What is happening with our TV schedulers and commissioning editors?

Recent additions to our multi-channel, documentary-soaked programming include a fly-on-the wall series about traffic wardens, posh pawn stores and water industry workers.

Earth-shattering programmes that have a massive "So what?" factor.

Now rumours abound that rather than think up new, creative concepts, we are going back in time.

Miranda Hart, it seems, is working on a pilot for The Generation Game - a show that is best kept in the archives because it never aged well when Brucie did it, followed by Larry Grayson and Jim Davidson.

A version in 2015 will be more like the Degeneration Game.

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AND finally I keep reading conflicting stories about soaring house prices and I am trying to follow what the mansion house tax means, and keep my interest rate in financial matters high. But one thing about the property market I do know...bouncy castles are keeping up with inflation.