It is parliament who should be ashamed, not Cameron

The former prime minister has no reason to be ashamed for calling the referendum in 2016 because he knew Brexit was a matter which needed to be settled by a vote.

Nor could he be blamed for the furore which followed this referendum turning parliament into a bear garden.

The people who should be ashamed of themselves are the parliamentarians who, despite their promise to support the result of the referendum, campaign against leaving the EU.

Now we have reached the stage where parliament has been so obstructive that reaching an amicable solution is impossible. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has created more trouble by proroguing the House in a desperate bid to reach a solution.

Mr Cameron does not mince his words in his memoirs, published this weekend, in which he says Boris Johnson and the cabinet figure Michael Gove behaved “appallingly”, accuses Johnson of supporting leave for his own ends and calls his one-time friend Gove “mendacious”. Strong stuff.

Rows and disputes in cabinet are not unknown but it is rare for an ex prime minister to use such blatant language against two of his most senior colleagues when he was at Number 10.

Meanwhile , yet another Conservative MP has defected to the Liberal Democrats, which seems to be the only party — it is firmly pro Remain — to benefit from Johnson’s drastic action over Parliament.

However, Labour remain at sixes and sevens over their stance on Brexit, with key figures in their leadership at odds with each other.

Never have Britain’s political institutions been so fraught by such vicious inter party and intra party troubles.

How on earth Johnson will get out of this mess, despite his alleged optimism, remains a mystery.

The only answer, surely is a general election but that does not seem to have gathered favour at Westminster.

The government therefore totters along as its leading personnel appear to have lost faith in each other.

This affair will take drastic action to resolve it and it will not end without a lot of political blood being spilt.

l Jo Swinson, the new leader of the Liberal Democrats, and her party have agreed at their conference in Bournemouth simply to scrap Brexit without reference to the arguments put forward by those for and against.

What is the point of having a referendum and ditching the result because nobody has found a way to deal with it?

The Liberal Democrats boast about their adherence to democratic ideals but this plan of theirs is a complete denial of all things democratic. I suppose they think that this an easy way out.

Of all the political parties, the Liberal Democrats have benefited from the shambles of the Brexit negotiations. They are the only party firmly on the side of Remain.

Yet I cannot see how they can appease their consciences by dumping something which they don’t like even though leave won the referendum.

No-one would dare do this in the case of a general election. This move demonstrates that the quality of MPs at Westminster has sunk to a new low.

How Liberal Democrats at their conference can walk around with their heads held high is something I cannot fathom.

They talk big about winning a parliamentary majority and becoming the leading party at Westminster, but happily none of this seems likely.

They are enjoying a boost at the moment but it will not be long before they are back in the doldrums

l The funeral of the brutal Robert Mugabe, ex president of Zimbabwe, who has died aged 95, took place in Harare’s 60,000 seat National Stadium.

He had always claimed during his long and vicious rule of Zimbabwe that all the votes he got were massive. Yet the venue was merely a quarter full for that funeral.

That says all you need to know about the truthfulness of the man who ran Zimbabwe like a terrorist.