diff --git a/src/bootstrap/bootstrap_test.py b/src/bootstrap/bootstrap_test.py
index 6a4a64a1ed549..20bd71f06e918 100644
--- a/src/bootstrap/bootstrap_test.py
+++ b/src/bootstrap/bootstrap_test.py
@@ -91,8 +91,7 @@ def serialize_and_parse(self, args):
             # Verify this is actually valid TOML.
             tomllib.loads(build.config_toml)
         except ImportError:
-            # too old a version of python
-            pass
+            print("warning: skipping TOML validation, need at least python 3.11", file=sys.stderr)
         return build
 
     def test_no_args(self):
diff --git a/src/bootstrap/configure.py b/src/bootstrap/configure.py
index dc2271bdf27ac..abd28b4005d0b 100755
--- a/src/bootstrap/configure.py
+++ b/src/bootstrap/configure.py
@@ -251,7 +251,7 @@ def parse_args(args):
 
         if not found:
             unknown_args.append(arg)
-    
+
     # Note: here and a few other places, we use [-1] to apply the *last* value
     # passed.  But if option-checking is enabled, then the known_args loop will
     # also assert that options are only passed once.
diff --git a/src/ci/docker/host-x86_64/mingw-check-tidy/Dockerfile b/src/ci/docker/host-x86_64/mingw-check-tidy/Dockerfile
index 889a586b351d6..b5715024a8484 100644
--- a/src/ci/docker/host-x86_64/mingw-check-tidy/Dockerfile
+++ b/src/ci/docker/host-x86_64/mingw-check-tidy/Dockerfile
@@ -1,6 +1,8 @@
 FROM ubuntu:22.04
 
 ARG DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
+# NOTE: intentionally uses python2 for x.py so we can test it still works.
+# validate-toolstate only runs in our CI, so it's ok for it to only support python3.
 RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
   g++ \
   make \
@@ -8,6 +10,7 @@ RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
   file \
   curl \
   ca-certificates \
+  python2.7 \
   python3 \
   python3-pip \
   python3-pkg-resources \
@@ -30,4 +33,4 @@ RUN pip3 install --no-deps --no-cache-dir --require-hashes -r /tmp/reuse-require
 COPY host-x86_64/mingw-check/validate-toolstate.sh /scripts/
 COPY host-x86_64/mingw-check/validate-error-codes.sh /scripts/
 
-ENV SCRIPT python3 ../x.py test --stage 0 src/tools/tidy tidyselftest
+ENV SCRIPT python2.7 ../x.py test --stage 0 src/tools/tidy tidyselftest
diff --git a/src/ci/docker/host-x86_64/x86_64-gnu-llvm-14/Dockerfile b/src/ci/docker/host-x86_64/x86_64-gnu-llvm-14/Dockerfile
index a007bf183ee11..dc8a4aac76873 100644
--- a/src/ci/docker/host-x86_64/x86_64-gnu-llvm-14/Dockerfile
+++ b/src/ci/docker/host-x86_64/x86_64-gnu-llvm-14/Dockerfile
@@ -2,7 +2,6 @@ FROM ubuntu:22.04
 
 ARG DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
 
-# NOTE: intentionally installs both python2 and python3 so we can test support for both.
 RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
   g++ \
   gcc-multilib \
@@ -11,8 +10,7 @@ RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
   file \
   curl \
   ca-certificates \
-  python2.7 \
-  python3 \
+  python3.11 \
   git \
   cmake \
   sudo \