The sentences were short. Crisp. Like his shirt. Spare. Propulsive. See what I did there? Italics. Random. Italics. And. Punctuation.

Business secretary almost made it through unscathed until he was reminded of Brexit disruption to vaccine supply chain

... Initially it looked as if the business secretary was going to survive the questions unscathed. A member of the public called Chris got halfway through an intelligent question about how any vaccine would be rolled out before realising that it was Sharma he was talking to so there was no chance of getting an intelligent answer. Sure enough, Alok did not disappoint: confident to admit his ignorance he just burbled on about being sure that those that needed it most would get it first. Fair to say, Sharma is not a details man.

The trouble started with a question from the BBC about reports that Brexit could disrupt the supply chain for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Rather sweetly, Sharma didn’t even seem to sense the danger in the question. Perhaps this was because this was the one part of his brief he does understand and he was keen to share his excitement and wisdom with everyone watching. Yes, he said, Brexit was going to bring huge disruptions to almost every business which was why he had just started a series of webinars so that companies had a chance to prepare.

He didn’t seem to realise there was less than 50 days before the UK left the EU, that there was virtually no chance of businesses being prepared in time as the government hadn’t even yet arrived at a deal or no deal and vaccines wouldn’t be exempt from the chaos. If Covid doesn’t kill you, then Brexit will.

From there, it all went downhill. Asked about the current infighting within Downing St and the resignation of Lee Cain, all Sharma could manage was that everyone was working hard to protect lives and livelihoods. Principally their own. When Dominic Cummings single-handedly destroyed the government’s coronavirus messaging with his jaunts to Durham and his trips to Specsavers he had done so with only the good of the country in mind. Likewise, Cain had only ever wanted to teach the world to sing. Asked who Joe Biden’s chief of staff should call now that Boris didn’t have one, the best that Sharma could offer was that he was sure there was a reassuring answerphone message about the climate crisis on the Downing Street switchboard number.

Powis could tell the presser was falling apart and hurriedly referred subsequent questions about Brexit disruptions to the vaccine supply chain back to Sharma. By now you could see that even the business secretary was beginning to realise he might be in trouble. Even if he didn’t know quite why or just how much. He first mumbled something about being very hopeful about the vaccine but then he couldn’t prevent himself from telling the truth. Because at heart, Sharma is one of the few honest ministers in the cabinet. So he resorted to his first answer of there being problems and was last seen being dragged away by security shouting “webinars”.