Everyone’s got a sound that drives them potty. For some, it’s that slow chomp of a train passenger munching their egg sandwiches.
For others, it’s the spine-shivering screech of a shopping trolley’s tyres against the supermarket linoleum.
Mine’s listening to Education Secretary Gavin Williamson in the Commons. Goodness it’s an ordeal.
Reading his statement, Williamson sounded about as interested as a bingo caller in a retirement home. He droned something about ‘ensuring that the nation’s children have not only a safe education, but an excellent one’
Gav doesn’t so much speak as drawl, each syllable he utters is stretched and elongated like pasta dough. It reeeeally can be moooost irritating.
The trick to public speaking is to actually convince your audience you’re actually worth listening to. Michael Gove, for example. See how he fizzes at the despatch box with unbridled enthusiasm.
Mr Williamson by contrast always looks so pained. He could inform you that you’ve just won a lifetime’s supply of whisky and still make it sound like he’s asking you to undergo a colonoscopy.
The trick to public speaking is to actually convince your audience you’re actually worth listening to. Michael Gove, for example. See how he fizzes at the despatch box with unbridled enthusiasm
The minister came to the House yesterday to announce new safety plans which he hopes will get our schools up and running in September.
He promised to get them back last month only to cave in to our helpful friends in the teaching unions.
Along with the usual dictums of cleaning and hand-scrubbing, the Government’s main plan appeared to be keeping different year groups apart.
By isolating them in separate ‘bubbles’ – that social distancing mot du jour – it’s hoped that the spread of the virus will be prevented.
Reading his statement, Williamson sounded about as interested as a bingo caller in a retirement home.
He droned something about ‘ensuring that the nation’s children have not only a safe education, but an excellent one.’
If this were a classroom, pupils would have been flicking ink at each other by now.
Instead, the chamber sat listening joylessly, their bored faces reminiscent of those you see in the GP’s waiting room.
The only smattering of entertainment came from hearing Williamson pronounce the word ‘bubbles’.
There was great emphasis on the first syllable, his lips wrapped right around the word as though he were trying to actually blow one out of his mouth.
Responding for Labour was Gav’s new shadow, Kate Green, whose predecessor Rebecca Long-Bailey was sacked last week for tweeting an interview with Maxine Peake in which the actress aired some batty theories about Israel.
Miss Green has Ronnie Barker glasses, speaks in a beguiling Scots lilt and has something approaching a personality.
Quite unlike her predecessor, in other words, who could be outcharmed by the speaking clock on your telephone.
She welcomed the new safety measures, though naturally gave the usual spiel about the Government being ‘asleep at the wheel’ during the crisis.
However, some might have raised a quizzical eyebrow at her claim that teachers had been ‘working flat out’ since February and will ‘need a break’ over the summer. Well, some have. Others, not so much.
There remained anger on the Government benches over the unions’ role in preventing schools from returning in June.
Gareth Davies (Con, Grantham and Stamford) attacked the National Education Union for issuing orders not to engage with the Government.
Christian Wakeford (Con, Bury South) said the NEU had also threatened to ‘name and shame’ head teachers who were reopening their schools. Andrew Griffith (Con, Arundel and South Downs) urged constructiveness from Green, stressing children should not be used as ‘political pawns’.
He could inform you that you’ve just won a lifetime’s supply of whisky and still make it sound like he’s asking you to undergo a colonoscopy
Yet Williamson diplomatically called for ‘a broad and exceptionally constructive approach’ from everyone. Can’t afford to upset anyone now, see?
His best moment came when Richard Burgon (Lab, Leeds East) appeared over the video-link, blathering on as ever.
Williamson thought it a pity Burgon had remembered to take himself off mute before he spoke. Cue hearty chuckles around the chamber.
Poor Burgon. When a clot like Williamson is getting the better of you then perhaps the game really is up.
Later, I switched Sky News on to catch Williamson’s Downing Street press conference. Two minutes in, the producers pulled the plug, preferring to focus on Ghislaine Maxwell’s arrest in the US instead.
Oh dear. Was Gav’s voice annoying them as well?