As we all know, Ken Clarke is not one for the boring detail.
When he was chancellor of the exchequer he famously admitted to never having read the Maastricht treaty – despite the fact that it laid out the route map to European monetary union, which was by far the most divisive political issue of the day.
So on his first Commons outing today as shadow business secretary, it was no surprise that Ken arrived in the Commons wielding a very broad brush.
His best line came when he accused Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson (who was delivering his statement in the Lords, so sent his deputy Ian Pearson to read it to MPs) of dithering while the car industry burned.
"They have set up a taaaaaask force ... " Clarke said mockingly, to the delight of the Tory benches.
The wind was only slightly taken out of Ken's – and the Conservatives' – sails, when Pearson pointed out that his statement actually said that Mandelson had "tasked the trade and investment minister, Mervyn Davies, to draw up a plan for improving the access to finance".
There was a slight – just a slight – difference between tasking someone to do something now and setting up a task force to see what they might do in the future, protested Pearson, with some justification.
Ken waved his arms dismissively as his failure to read the statement properly was pointed out.
"Oh, details! Details!" shouted the Tories to laughter on all sides of the house.
