An 11-word lesson in brevity from the 広大な／多数の／重要な Desmondo: QUENTIN LETTS sees a quick question 投げつけるd 負かす／撃墜する in the first over of play at Westminster

By Quentin Letts for the Daily Mail

Published: | Updated:

As I 令状 this, the bells of St Margaret’s church peal 前へ／外へ across 議会 Square after an All Souls’ Day 記念の service for Tam Dalyell, いつか Father of the House.

In the 議会 earlier, （衆議院の）議長 Bercow ladled treacle over Tam’s memory, calling him ‘doughty and utterly fearless’. Indeed he was. And he couldn’t がまんする Bercow!

Brevity was a Dalyell trademark. He understood that if you ping in a short question, a 大臣 has いっそう少なく time to 工夫する an evasive answer. Few of today’s lot しっかり掴む this.?

Brevity was a Tam Dalyell (pictured) trademark.?He understood that if you ping in a short question, a minister has less time to devise an evasive answer

Brevity was a Tam Dalyell (pictured) trademark.?He understood that if you ping in a short question, a 大臣 has いっそう少なく time to 工夫する an evasive answer

How they drone. An exception is Sir Desmond Swayne (反対／詐欺, New Forest W), who in the first over of yesterday’s play 投げつけるd 負かす／撃墜する a question of just 11 words. It was about our Brexit 交渉s with the EU.

Brexiteer Sir Desmond to the 前線 （法廷の）裁判: ‘Is our 申し込む／申し出 more generous than that of the other 味方する?’ With that he sat 負かす／撃墜する and Brexit 大臣 コマドリ Walker, pop-注目する，もくろむd and gulping, had no 選択 but to ‘heartily agree’ with the 広大な／多数の／重要な Desmondo.

Half an hour or so later, Stella Creasy (Lab, Walthamstow) was given the ball during Topical Questions, a time for 恐らく even quicker 交流s.?

反して Sir Desmond managed to put his point in 11 words, 行方不明になる Creasy needed 203 words. Even then, it was not （疑いを）晴らす what she was trying to say.?

Brevity may be not just the soul of wit but also a 調印する of （疑いを）晴らす thinking.?

Sir John Sainty, a former Clerk of 議会s, used to tell new peers that their oral questions should run to no more than four lines of Hansard.?

Speaker Bercow (pictured) ladled treacle over Tam?s memory, calling him ?doughty and utterly fearless?. Indeed he was. And he couldn?t abide Bercow!

（衆議院の）議長 Bercow (pictured) ladled treacle over Tam’s memory, calling him ‘doughty and utterly fearless’. Indeed he was. And he couldn’t がまんする Bercow!

In the Lords the other day, former 労働 MP Lord Hain put a question which took up 23 lines of the next day’s Hansard. His windbaggery 達成するd nothing.

支援する to yesterday in the ありふれたs. Brexit Questions, as ever, 許すd the House’s many Remainers to 予報する 災害 once we are 発射 of Brussels.?

の中で them was that Capt Mainwaring of the Tory （法廷の）裁判s, （頭が）ひょいと動く Neill (Bromley & Chislehurst).?

He waxed pessimistically about the City of London’s prospects, doing so at such length that even Bercow lost patience and called his question ‘terribly long-winded, really very poor’.

Mr Neill is often seen hanging on the lawyerly tails of Dominic Grieve, self-任命するd prince of プロの／賛成の-Brussels Tories (a member of the Legion d’Honneur, too).?

In the first over of yesterday?s play Sir Desmond Swayne (pictured) ?hurled down a question of just 11 words. It was about our Brexit negotiations with the EU

In the first over of yesterday’s play Sir Desmond Swayne (pictured) ?投げつけるd 負かす／撃墜する a question of just 11 words. It was about our Brexit 交渉s with the EU

Grieve, long and lanky, is about a foot taller than bouncy-ball Neill. I saw them behind the （衆議院の）議長’s 議長，司会を務める on Wednesday afternoon, little Neill all eager at his master’s 味方する, looking up at lofty Grieve like Basil 小衝突 捜し出すing validation from puppeteer Mr Roy.

Yesterday this 二人組 was to be spotted on the green （法廷の）裁判s.?

Mr Grieve, chara cteristically, did not deign to look at Neill but spoke to him as Cleopatra might have dispensed bathtime orders to a handmaid, one 脚 up on the （法廷の）裁判 in 前線.?

He 協議するd his 動きやすい telephone as he drawled.

For his part, Mr Neill, 直面する twitching, decided to （問題を）取り上げる his own 動きやすい telephone; but he kept ちらりと見ることing across at Mr Grieve, eager for the crumb of any smile.

Before lunch we had a peppery 開会／開廷／会期 on Catalonia, Foreign Office 大臣 Sir Alan Duncan spanking 負かす／撃墜する Scots Nat and Plaid Cymru MPs who sympathised with the Catalan independence movement.?

Sir Alan, all clipped consonants, a hairdo 築く with indignation, was markedly succinct in his 解雇／（訴訟の）却下 of the 国家主義者s.?

Here was another use for brevity: More than any long 砲撃 of 乱用, it can?speak of contempt.

Europhiles are の中で the keenest critics of Catalan independence. And so it was not long before we heard from wildly プロの／賛成の-EU Tom Tugendhat (反対／詐欺, Tonbridge & 商店街ing), who is in danger of 訴訟／進行 from 有望な young hope to 設立 stodge without passing Go.?

Mr Tugendhat attacked 国家主義者 MPs for daring to advise a 君主 nation (Spain) on how to run its ‘内部の 事件／事情／状勢s’.

But is that not, surely, the very damn impertinence of which Brussels has long been 有罪の ? the sort of foreign 干渉 we will escape after Brexit?

?

Most watched News ビデオs

Comments 33

株 what you think

  見解（をとる） all

The comments below have not been 穏健なd.

  見解（をとる） all

The 見解（をとる）s 表明するd in the contents above are those of our 使用者s and do not やむを得ず 反映する the 見解（をとる）s of MailOnline.

We are no longer 受託するing comments on this article.