I’m here all weak

Cheesy Chancellor’s jests enough to make you gag

THERE is nothing more painful than watching a man with all the charisma of an estate agent trying to be funny.

But so thin was the policy gruel that Spreadsheet Phil had to spread, he chose to beef it up with gags about Labour.

He indulged in panto: “Oh yes we will”, said “they don’t call it the last Labour government for nothing” and compared them to a “driverless vehicle”.

Jokes so lame his writers should be working on The Nightly Show (except for the one who wrote “Jeremy Corbyn is now so far down a black hole that even Stephen Hawking has disowned him” which was a decent effort.)

But there was no banter about the hottest topic around: Brexit.

And when he tried to tell us that everything in our garden was rosy, it felt a bit like watching La La Land.

Theresa May sat next to him, resembling a stern headmistress who’s allowed her deputy to address assembly and is scowling around for naughty pupils.

Jeremy Hunt, looking like a zombie who’s just been turned away from A&E, gurned a few seats down. Iain Duncan Smith stood by the door frowning like a skin-headed bouncer, ensuring no one got out before the end. Many must have been tempted.

Because it was, as you’d expect from Mr Mogadon, a classic lesson in how to bore your audience into a coma so they don’t understand the reality of what you’re saying.

Like an undertaker who’d decided to step back from the burials and become the accountant, detached and unemotional as he handed out the bill.

There was an arrogance to Hammond as he raised national insurance for millions of self-employed workers – now that’s no laughing matter.