Friday, October 24, 2008

Simon Hoggart Sketches Chris Bryant

Simon Hoggart has a highly amusing sketch today, where he writes about Chris Bryant's performance, deputising for Harriet Harman at Business Questions yesterday.

Until last month Mr Bryant, Labour MP for Rhondda, was something of a parliamentary joke. A former vicar, he was best known for posing in his knickers on a gay website. Then he was made deputy leader of the house, which makes him Harriet Harman's understrapper. Yesterday she was off sick, or had been "struck down by the lurgy," as Mr Bryant put it. (The term comes from The Goon Show. A while ago we used it in our community panto. "Where's the fairy godmother?" one of the witches asked. "She's in bed with the dreaded lurgy," was the reply. "Oh, I don't know, I quite like Italian men myself," the witch said.)

Yesterday he was poised, calm and confident. He appeared to have a complete mastery not only of his own brief (no, not briefs, don't be stupid) but of everyone else's as well. Facts, judgments and statistics - some possibly true - poured out, and he didn't have a single note. Sometimes he was ferocious and party-political, sometimes ameliorative. He clearly loved being at the dispatch box, the centre of attention. I bet he did great sermons, even when fully clothed.

Read the full sketch HERE.

*Sorry about the pathetic headline for this piece. Every other one I thought of was a bit too risque.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hoggart and Bryant, a europhile love-in.

Anonymous said...

I bet Gordon wishes Harman would go and pursue another career - little chance of it though, unless he puts Mandy to work on her...

Anonymous said...

I'd have thought that Simon Hoggart would not have fallen into the old trap of calling anyone in holy orders a "vicar" - I'm sure the Guardian style guide flags this up as an error to be avoided.

Vicars are priest who have responsibility for a congregation and a church: it's an office one holds. Bryant trained for the priesthood. He was a curate and youth chaplain - and apparently decided politics was the way to go. - but I see no sign that he was ever a vicar.

Anonymous said...

Saying that Simon Hoggart has written an amusing sketch is about as revolutionary an observation as suggesting that the Sun rises in the east. It's a shame that he writes for the raggedy and discredited old Guardian. It is such a priggish 'preach to the converted' paper that flexible minds [well, *this* flexible mind, at least!] tend not to bother with it.

He's also exceptionally good company.

GarethS said...

Ann Treneman does a decent, possibly even better, job on the subject too.

Anonymous said...

He was pretty good - though it hurst to say it...

Conand said...

She [Theresa May] went on to complain about negative growth and recession. Mr Bryant said how nice it was to hear her and all her usual lines. "I have now heard her peroration 27 times, and it's very good to hear it again."

Ho Ho, very good. The thought that Parliament should discuss the recession, just imagine! I almost choked on my home knit yoghurt.

Sorry Iain, I find Hoggwart terribly unfunny.

[Word Verification= fear flum quite!]

Anonymous said...

How about
"Bryant not pants"?