Watching Jacob Rees-Mogg in full flow at Business Questions sometimes feels like tuning in for an episode of Just A Minute – but with the rules in reverse.
In this version of the fast-talking panel show, repetition and hesitation are actively encouraged. So too are rambling expeditions off-topic through some wanton misunderstanding of the question.
So when Thangam Debbonaire, shadow commons leader, asked Rees-Mogg to explain how the Government had unaccountably mislaid the minutes of a call between Owen Paterson, Lord Bethell and Randox over the award of a £600 million public sector contract, the Troll King launched into a monologue on the virtues of the free market.
“They have always been incontinent in their use of taxpayers’ money,” he drawled, chuckling at the very idea that any Labour politician could have an opinion on wasteful spending. (Tory backbenchers hooted away too, though some might say the old “Labour loves spending like a drunken sailor on a run ashore” gag is only good up to a certain number of tax rises.)
When would the Government’s Online Harms Bill be presented to Parliament, Debonnaire wanted to know. “Could the Leader of the House help us out?”, she grinned across the dispatch box. “Could he tell us what ‘soon’ means?”
No – came the answer, because “then we get into a metaphysical question of what is time, what is ‘soon’, what is Christmas? I mean you could say that Christmas goes on at least until February 2 which is Candlemas”, rambled the Just A Minute champion. “The Orthodox calendar goes on even later.”
Mr Troll v Mr Droll
For a moment, I sensed the ghost of Nicholas Parsons entering Parliament to mouth “deviation” and shake his fist at proceedings.
Not for the first time, the SNP’s Pete Wishart seemed unamused by the high kinks in Westminster.
“Hurrah! Raise the flags! Let’s have a party in Downing Street!” sulked Wishart. “He at last had a face mask on his fizzog,” he added, of the Commons Leader’s temporary conversion to mask-wearing.
In a matter of sentences, Wishart’s dirge had broadened from Rees-Mogg to the rest of the Chamber.
He began with the libertarian wing of the Tory Party – mask-less “menaces” – before tearing into both the Government and the official opposition.
“[The Tories] have lost their polling lead to the Labour Party,” he gloated, gesturing unkindly at Debonnaire and her fellow MPs. “The Labour Party, for goodness sake!”
“The Scottish people are looking at this corrupt, sleazy cesspit and they do not like what they see!”
“Wheeeey!” came the cry from his assembled retainers, as if all politics north of the border operated with the purity of a Brownie pack or Quaker Meeting House.
One final trick …
But the master of deviation had one final trick up his sleeve.
A beaming Rees-Mogg took to his feet, with the twinkly expression that signalled a further bout of trolling, lightly concealed by faux-courtesy. “I’m delighted that the honourable gentleman is so easily pleased. Had I realised that he would become sweetness and light merely by my momentarily wearing a mask, I may have been tempted to do it before the Christmas season.”
The SNP glowered behind their masks. The Just A Minute superstar – the Commons’ answer to Paul Merton – had prevaricated for the full 60 seconds to beat the buzzer.
