Andy Burnham has said ‘the Cabinet has to look completely different’. He is right that some ministers are dire but sacking the likes of Rachel Reeves, Bridget Phillipson and mortuary attendant manque James Murray, the Health Secretary, would be merely a start.

Westminster is slowly realising how far it has drifted from the public. John Slinger (Lab, Rugby) rose in business questions to suggest a debate about the very function of MPs.

Mr Slinger is Westminster’s suckiest sycophant but even he now sees the status quo is untenable.

Tom Rutland (Lab, East Worthing & Shoreham) wailed that cuts to the parliamentary education outreach services could make MPs ‘more removed from young people’. The problem is bigger than a few outreach wallahs.

On the basis of yesterday’s debates, here are ten infuriating habits the Commons could immediately drop:

National self-hatred: Andrew George (Lib Dem, St Ives) wanted Britain to return the Elgin Marbles to Athens. His ilk are driven by Left-wing distaste for nationalism, yet it is Greek nationalists who agitate most strongly about the marbles. British nationalism bad, Greek nationalism good? Jeff Smith (Lab, Withington) blamed ‘negative’ Brexit for stopping British artists from touring in Europe. Those barriers were imposed by, er, the entirely unpositive EU.

Ministers on autopilot: Culture minister Ian Murray, responding to the Elgin Marbles question, coughed up a formulaic Whitehall briefing note. Twice. Any self-respecting minister would discard civil servants’ language and write his own, shorter version. It would immediately sound less deceitful.

MPs reading questions: Backbenchers have lost the art of memorising or extemporising questions. They read turgid sentences off pieces of paper. It is pitiful.

Prize exhibits: Wokingham’s Clive Jones (Lib Dem), the dullest man at Westminster, and Amanda Hack (Lab, NW Leics), who barely lifted her head when talking about musical theatre.

Bogus mateyness: Our political class scorns populism but MPs and ministers made faux-matey references to the World Cup. Lib Dem frontbencher Anna Sabine coughed up the hackneyed line about England ‘bringing it home’. One look at Sister Sabine suggested she was more a woman for DH Lawrence and Vanessa Bell decor than Harry Kane’s jockstrap.

Stop spending money: Everyone knows that the Treasury is broke yet MPs, even Conservatives, continue to demand more spending. A few million here, a few there, for their pet causes. More debt. More taxes.

Leaden references to constituencies: Chris Vince (Lab Co-op, Harlow) has made himself a ‘character’ by mentioning Harlow every time he speaks. Josh Babarinde (Lib Dem, Eastbourne) is no better. 

Aphra Brandreth (Con, Chester S & Eddisbury) did that thing of mentioning attractions in her area – ‘from Snugburys and the ice cream farm to BeWILDerwood and Beeston Castle’.

They think this will win them votes and a mention in their local rags. More likely it will convince electors that the local MP is a patronising, parochial bore.

Cliches: ‘Challenges’, ‘issues’, ‘workshops’, ‘strategies’, ‘uplifts’, ‘safeguarding’, ‘world-leading’, ‘ring-fencing’, ‘he is a doughty champion’, etc. The mind switches off such oratorical porridge.

Taking no lessons from the party opposite: You hear this said every day by ministers, often accompanied by ‘the mess they left us after 14 long years’. It is a response but not an argument. Lack of argument suggests lack of policy strength.

‘Working hard’: Civil servants, MPs and campaigners are forever being praised for ‘working hard’. Culture minister Stephanie Peacock, a jabbering robot, complimented a Labour colleague for ‘working incredibly hard’ on some festival in her area.

Likely translation: she put in a couple of telephone calls and had one of her aides distribute a press release via social media.

Verbosity: Look at Hansard from, say, the 1960s and you will notice that parliamentary questions and answers tended to be a couple of sentences long. Today they are at least twice that. Tessa Munt (Lib Dem, Wells & Mendip Hills) has such raging verbal diarrhoea, not even a pint of kaolin would cork it.

The more they talk, the less we listen.