Barclay finds 37 different ways to avoid the word ‘yes’

Competition is stiff, but in my view there’s only one winner. The most boring voice in politics belongs to Stephen Barclay. It’s like listening to a fridge – a low, constant, unvarying background hum so quiet that your ears soon stop picking it up altogether and you forget it’s there.

I spent two hours watching the Brexit Secretary take questions from the Brexit select committee yesterday. It would have been fine if his answers had been worth staying conscious for, but most were doggedly vague. No matter how straight the question, the reply was a verbal smudge. You could squint through your magnifying glass as hard as you liked, but you could never be entirely certain what it was.

Like so many politicians, Mr Barclay sticks to the strict rule: never use one word when 37 will do. Hilary Benn, chairman of the committee, asked how Boris Johnson would respond if a Brexit deal fell through. Would the Prime Minister send the EU a letter asking for more time?

Mr Barclay could have said yes. But Instead he said: “I can confirm, as the Prime Minister has repeatedly set out, that firstly the Government will comply with the law, and secondly the Government will comply with undertakings given to the court in respect of the law.”

True, Mr Johnson had indeed said that – but he’d also said, with force, that there were “no circumstances” in which he would request a delay, and that, come what may, Brexit would happen on Oct 31. Hence Mr Benn’s question about sending the letter.

They went back and forth for some time, Mr Barclay always appearing to say yes, without actually saying yes. Was he engaging in some ingenious sleight of hand, which cleverly left room for Mr Johnson to avoid sending the letter? Or was he just pathologically incapable of giving a straight answer?

Ideally, Mr Benn would have tried putting this to the test, by, say, asking how many legs a dog has. I would have been fascinated to hear the reply.

“With respect, Mr Chairman, you will obviously appreciate that I am not in a position at this stage to confirm an exact figure, but, as the Prime Minister has consistently set out, dogs do have legs, and the Leader of the House is expected to make a statement at the appropriate time clarifying what that figure may or may not be.”

Mr Benn eventually did seem to decide that Mr Barclay had answered his question. “That’s helpful,” he said. “You have confirmed that he will send that letter.”

Personally, all I’d heard was the humming of a fridge.