Absolutely desperate: it is pretty much the entirety of his job to embarrass the Government.

In fact, it remains pretty much the entirety of his job to embarrass the Government even when it is his party that forms the administration.

Unless he is a Minister, it is his job as a backbench MP to hold the executive to account. It speaks volumes that he doesn't even seem to feel ashamed about admitting this abject failure to a journalist.

Having to sit next to a scouser, ay?
Well that's as good a reason as any not to join Labour.

Cleanthes,

> even when it is his party that forms the administration.

Ach, don't remind me...

"Mr Speaker, would my right honorable friend agree that he is quite lovely and his government is, like, just the best government ever?"

Patrick Cormack actually was quite good at holding his own party to account when they were in government. He was one of the biggest critics of their Bosnia policy. The problem is that is absurdly pompous and like all pompous people is highly corruptible by flattery, so Blair effectively neutralised him by praising him a lot.

In return Cormack found the prospect of anyone not treating the Blair government with due deference utterly appalling. Take this story from 2002 for example:

"A Channel 4 political awards programme is being moved to the BBC after a Tory grandee denounced some of the content of the last show as blasphemous.

Sir Patrick Cormack and the House magazine, a journal for MPs, have ditched Channel 4 after he claimed a Harry Enfield spoof of the prime minister as the vicar of St Albion was irreligious.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/ broa...,795600,00.html