Cabinet boredom measured in 'Huttons'

'A government of all the bores' is Simon Hoggart's bleak judgement on Brown's cabinet. Time for a boredom roll call. The new minister for odds and ends, John Hutton is stunningly, cruxifyingly, soporific ally boring. The  mind-numbing qualities of all others are measured in 'Huttons.' He is the supreme, unchangeable  gold standard 10 Huttons.

John is entranced by hard core Blairism. He could have been a Scientologist, a Parsee or a Creationist if they'd got to him first.  His faith is total. He dresses, walks and talks in the Blairist mode, starting every other sentence with 'Look!' and wallowing in meaningless jargon.  He fillets his speeches of all humour, colour or frivolity and sticks to chanting the litany of Blairist nostrums.  He is the keeper of the flame on choice, PFI, and the war against terrorism.

He has his rivals whose boredom level can be expressed in the scientific measure 'Huttons'. Remember plus is bad: minus is good.

Allan Johnston. An attractive presence, sharp, persuasive and humorous. Is there gravitas behind the grin? NHS could be his Golgotha.
Rating: minus three Huttons.

Jack Straw. Wily self-preservationist. His 'low cunning' would have secured him a job in the Governments of the Vatican, the Kremlin or Mao Tse Tung. As fascinating as a solved crossword puzzle, as tedious as a repeated joke.
Rating: plus four Huttons.

Des Browne. Has interesting heron nest hair a droning hypnotic delivery plus an unfathomable gullibility. Possibly genuinely believe that NATO will win in Helmand. Rating: plus five Huttons.

Geoff Hoon. Good mind infected at an early stage with a eurodrivel virus. Too un-thuggish to be Chief Whip. Couldn't bully or threaten with a straight face.
Rating: minus two Huttons.

Hazel Blears. Birdlike motor mouth of the Blairist catechism. Went down in the deputy leadership election carrying  aloft the flickering Blair torch. Occasionally plausible. Always quick witted. Rating  plus two Huttons.

Peter Hain. Successful frontline politico and shapeshifter for 40 years. Deftly straddled left and right camps - painfully did the splits between the two in deputy poll. Ambitiously strives to be uninteresting and universally acceptable by hiding his talents.
Rating: plus 1 Hutton

David Miliband. Highly intelligent, creative and humorous. A political  phenomenon. Will Viagra the staid Foreign Office from its coma. A Blairism/ Iraq war apostate.  Rating : Minus 9 Huttons.

Ruth Kelly. Scary, fecund, tormented soul who believes in punishment and retribution.   Unlikely to frighten the horses in transport role.
Rating: plus two Huttons

Hilary Benn. Churchy, tedious Tony Benn talk-and-gesture-alike. Wounded by move from International Development but will shine at Environment. Main career obstacles are his decency and lack of guile.
Rating: plus 3 Huttons

Alistair Darling. Protestant, unexitingly, able and predictable. Doomed to disappoint with Chancellor chalice poisoned by Brown's brilliance.
Rating: 4 Huttons.

Jacqui Smith. Barely adequate nervy junior minister, talents are buried deed under several bushels but strangely visible to Gordon Brown. Intelligent charmer. Brown's greatest gamble.
Rating: plus two Huttons.

Ed Balls. Alone in undervaluing his own formidable talents. Present role is a starter job for future Chancellorship. Affable.
Rating:  minus three Huttons

Shaun Woodward. Generally soporific but with startling views on sexual politics. Son of a porter and a barmaid married a Sainsbury heiress. Expresses his socialism by limiting the number of his butlers to two.
Rating: minus one Hutton

Tessa Jowell. Weepily clinging on the rim of Olympic political volcano  that can blow anytime. Angst- wrecked Blairite, ultimately doomed.
Rating: plus one Hutton

James Purnell. Refreshing, open, breezily optimistic. Shows regular glimpses of brain activity. Wasted on dullards task of sport. Will shine on culture. Rating: Minus four
Huttons.

Douglas Alexander. Brown's vicar on earth. Political brilliance will dazzle in Brown's favoured work of International Development. Frighteningly competent.
Rating: minus three Huttons.

Beverley Hughes. Competent spear carrier who unnecessarily self-immolated over immigration foul-up. Warm empathy for new role in youth justice. Aimiable and acceptable face of Brownism. Rating: Zero Huttons

Lord Grocutt. A rare backbencher by choice. Good humoured wit who crafted PMQ ripostes for backbenchers while Blair's PPS. Unambiguous, saintly guilt free disposition, admirably suited to be their Lordships' sheepdog.
Rating: minus 6 Huttons

Harriet Harman. Comforted by deputy-leadership triumph into denial that the victory was a Pyrrhic one. Carries irremovable stains for grammar school choice and single parent robbery. A valuable, reliable and competent Brown ornament.
Rating. plus one Hutton.

John Denham. Skilfully choreographed his return to office by acting a backbench Government groupie and nark. Ability has propelled his trajectory from full-time Friends of the Earth worker to Innovations supremo.
Rating: Minus one Hutton.

Yvette Cooper. An abundance of talent and charm in charge of the newly sexed up housing portfolio. Magical ministerial rise to cabinet without making errors or enemies.
Rating : Minus two Huttons.

Mark Mullock Brown. An exciting inspired Brown coup. Will start Labour's self-absolution of Iraq war guilt. Rating: Zero Huttons.

Andy Burnham. Potential star, ability marred by pedestrian presentational skills. Still ridiculously young.
Rating: Plus two Huttons.

Comments

[Anon]

Dear Uncle Paul,

Your Hutton scale is interesting but not scientific. A physicist might define some kind of logarithmic scale, (like the pH or Richter scales) based for example the ratio of truth to bullshit. We perhaps should use a base of two. So, let's name the scale after dear old Neil Kinnock, who would traditionally dispense twice as much truth as bullshit. A ratio of 2-1 would be 2 to the power 1 or 1 Kinnock. People like yourself or Bob Marshall-Andrews who have a T-B ratio of at least 8-1 would register 3+ (8=2 to the power 3) on the Kinnock scale, whereas Peter Hain , who dispenses truth and bullshit in equal measure, would score Zero (1-1 = 1 = 2 to the power 0) on the Kinnock scale. (Lets's face it - for all his skills, Peter is no Kinnock!) Alan Johnson would have a score of -3, meaning that the truth to bullshit ratio would be 1-8, whereas Tony's score would tend to minus infinity.

Of course, we could set up the scale slightly differently - if we used a scale like the bel-decibel scale for sound which has a base of ten, then one Cook would be 2 Kinnocks, or 20 deciKinnocks - but this might be more difficult to understand.

I hope this gives you pause to think and to smile,

Keep up the good work - if I had an MP like you I might still be in the Labour Party.