Marks Out Of No.10

‘DID the habit of giving marks for everyday life begin with tabloid football reporters, who equip their missives with ‘Beckham 9/10’ and so forth?

‘I’d give the Right Honourable gentleman a seven’

Or are Chris Tarrant and TV to blame for the new trend for review by numbers?

‘Now, Euan from Bristol, how sure are you that Michael Howard delivered a good performance in yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Question Time? Twenty percent? Thirty-three percent..?’

The Guardian reports that Adam Boulton, Sky’s political editor, thinks Howard deserves an 8/10, an impressive but not totally convincing 80%.

It’s the same score picked by Bob Marshall-Andrews, a rare double-barrel on the Labour benches. He saw Howard’s debut as Tory leader and concludes that the Prime Minister is going to have to take Howard ‘very seriously’. But not 90% seriously.

Before we can coax Marshall-Andrews up to a score of 83% or even 85%, Robin Oakley, billed as European political editor of CNN, produces something of an echo with his 8/10.

And so it goes on, right through Mathew Taylor’s (Lib-Dem) 5/10 and Jacqui Lait’s (Tory) 10/10.

The new shadow home affairs spokeswoman may be a lickspittle of the most toadying order, but Ms Lait knows her own mind.

‘He was light on his feet and light in his sharp reactions,’ says Jacqui of Howard. ‘He clearly got Tony Blair on entirely the wrong foot.’

This is clearly fighting talk. And while George Foreman eats his lo-fat grilled heart out at the power of a 62-year-old, we consider it a pity that we don’t get to hear the judges’ marks for the titleholder, the lightweight Blair.

But, with a nod to Tony’s passion for football, we suspect that he’d get an 11/10 from his team, which, as any political pundit worth his salt knows, is an encouraging 110%.’

Posted: 13th, November 2003 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink