Geoffrey Cox's high amateur dramatics fail to cover up his towering professional failure

In front of the eyes of the world, the attorney general gave a two-star performance

Down at the despatch box, Geoffrey Cox slowly drew his tongue over his top teeth. He flexed his cheeks, pulling the corners of his mouth back towards his ears, as if he were an Olympic sprinter limbering up before the 100-metre final.

This was big. Never before had the fire of anticipation burned so hot within him. Not even on that famous night when the man from the Kent Courier was in the house for the Tonbridge Players legendary 2008 production of Richard II.

He recited the words again in his head, as he liked to do, ten or twenty times a day.

“Spellbinding. The finest John of Gaunt you will see this side of the A21.”

Spellbinding. That’s what he’d said. It was right there in black and white, at the bottom of page 17, beneath the tragic tale of Chloe the Springer Spaniel, left to yap her super-heated last in the back of that Toyota Yaris behind Bromley Asda.

Spellbinding. It was a matter of public record, as he and any guest who’d ever used his downstairs toilet was well aware.

He had spellbound before. He could spellbind again.

He glanced up at the gantry. Today, the cameras of the BBC Parliament channel were the eyes of the world.

The House of Commons had been forced to return, against the wishes of his own government. The prime minister had been summoned back from New York. Straight after him, a very junior technology minister called Matt Warman would have to stand up and claim, with a straight face, that the £126,000 of public money awarded to a former model who used to give Boris Johnson “technology lessons” in her flat was all above board.

Most of all, he had advised the government it would be perfectly lawful to prorogue parliament, the Supreme Court had profoundly disagreed, and now the House of Commons wanted to know why.

What was required was nothing less than the performance of his life. He’d spent all last night working through the nuances of the character. What was his method? His motivation?

It had not escaped his consideration that perhaps some humility might be required, given he had been at least partly responsible for the international and historic humiliation of his government.

But that, much to the surprise of everyone in the room, was not the interpretation he had decided to take.

Within seconds he was snarling and shouting. The vibrato of his righteous anger appeared to be forcing electric currents through his reddening jowls.

No, he wouldn’t be resigning. Why would he resign? To even suggest such a thing, as the Labour benches were doing, was “a shameless piece of cynical opportunism.”

Quite a punchy choice of words, that, when the sole reason you’re standing there making a totemic fool of yourself is because your own government’s shameless piece of cynical opportunism has backfired so spectacularly.

He was jabbing his finger now. All this was because of the opposition, who had refused to grant his government the no-deal Brexit con-job election they had tried and failed to trick them in to.

And then, almost on the stroke of noon, he took the performance up a notch.

“This parliament is a dead parliament!” He blared. “It should no longer sit. It has no moral right to sit on these green Benches!”

At this point, he began almost to orbit the despatch box. He jabbed his finger with such force it seemed to drag him four feet in every direction it went. It was like watching that old “haunted tea towel” trick with the hidden spoon, as he chased his hyper-extended digit all around the room.

I cannot recall a solo performer covering such a wide area since Kanye West headlined the Pyramid Stage.

“They don’t like the truth!” he thundered. Rarely do over-excited politicians doing their very best Jack Nicholson from A Few Good Men oblige with the almost identical dialogue.

“This parliament is a disgrace! They could vote no confidence at any time, but they are too cowardly to give it a go!”

The trouble with all this, however, is that it’s just not true. The opposition is not too cowardly to have a general election. The opposition, as Cox knows, has refused to grant an election before 31 October, because it doesn’t trust the government not to break the law recently passed in the House of Commons, to stop Johnson taking the country out of the EU with no deal.

And the trouble is, the only reason you’re standing there, at the despatch box of a House of Commons that isn’t meant to be sitting, is because the Supreme Court has also come to a crushing, unanimous verdict that it doesn’t trust you either.

And that, really, is what this overwhelming pantomime act was about.

A few years ago, I spent a long, long time covering the Pistorius trial. The prevailing view, in South African legal circles, was that the prosecutor, Gerrie Nel, knew he did not have the evidence to prove Pistorius knew his girlfriend was in the toilet cubicle when he shot through it. So he mounted an emotional case instead.

The trial was televised after all, and if he couldn’t secure the first-degree murder conviction he wanted, he could still win the case in the court of public opinion.

Who knows if the barrister Cox thinks similar? Who of us can know if what was really going on was the turning of the fire of his own abject failure on to the opposition?

Well, Barry Sheerman MP knew. He stood up and unleashed the angriest rant I have ever, and I suspect, will ever hear in that hallowed room.

“Ever word he has uttered today shows no shame, no shame at all!” As he said the words, Cox nodded his head, and curled his lips. No, he wasn’t ashamed.

Violence was in the air. These are the kinds of scenes that traditionally summon the police to provincial minicab queues at 2am on Saturday nights.

Sheerman is 79 years old. He wears a hearing aid, which we must hope was turned down or he would have done himself a serious injury with the sound of his own voice.

“The fact is that this government cynically manipulated the prorogation to shut down this House...He knows that that is the truth...and for a man like him, a party like his, and a leader like this prime minister to talk about morals and morality is a disgrace!”

Cox was having none of it. Whether he was actually of the opinion that his government had done nothing to be ashamed of is a tricky one.

But what is a statement of fact is that Cox’s opinions do not always turn out to be correct, as he, his government and the rest of the world will know forever more.