Philip Hammond is the most overpaid public sector worker in the country

Last week, Hammond not only insulted his fellow public sector workers, he also apparently told the Cabinet that driving a train has become such a doddle that it is no longer beyond a woman’s capabilities

The Chancellor’s whole pay package must be worth close to £400,000 (PA)

When Philip Hammond treated the Cabinet to the insight that public sector workers are “overpaid”, was this a rare show of humble self-awareness from a senior politician? Was he thinking of himself?

In addition to his MP’s salary of £74,000, Hammond trousers almost as much again (£67,505) – about thrice the average salary of a nurse – for being Chancellor. Of course, that doesn’t account for the lavish expenses, outrageously generous pension arrangements, and free use of a central London flat and a splendid grace-and-favour country house in Buckinghamshire. The whole package must be worth close to £400,000.

Would a private sector employer reckon Hammond worth hiring at such expense after a year in his current job most fondly recalled for that humiliating U-turn on self-employed National Insurance contributions? His Budget disintegrated within days, he is openly skirmishing with his rivals for the succession, and he has only survived on sufferance because a Prime Minister with whom he has visibly fallen out with is too weak to fire him as she intended to had she won a majority.

Last week, meanwhile, Hammond not only insulted the fellow public sector workers whose salary “rise” (in real terms, of course, a pay cut) he insists on restricting to 1 per cent. He apparently told the Cabinet that driving a train has become such a doddle that it is no longer beyond a woman’s capabilities. In trying to extricate himself from his colleagues’ sardonic irritation (“Oh, even we could do it!” murmured Amber Rudd), he kept digging himself into an even deeper hole until Theresa May threatened to confiscate his shovel. Nothing there to cause the ghost of Dorothy Parker too much angst, perhaps. But you know someone’s a proper clown (Boris Johnson would confirm this) when this PM feels emboldened to attempt a teasing jest.

So then, with his track record for incompetence, poor workplace relations and insulting the poorly paid from the aloof perspective of one whose net wealth is estimated at £8-£9m, what is it about Philip Hammond that justifies a salary package worth at least ten times that of a nurse?

It cannot be his silken skills as a media performer. On any Andrew Marr Show featuring Ian Duncan Smith talking the trademark gibberish and Hammond’s shadow John McDonnell repeating his crazy talk about the casualties of the Grenfell Tower fire being victims of “social murder”, it takes special talent to project yourself as the silliest politician on the sofa.

Hammond achieved this with an interview of surreal incompetence. Asked if he did in fact call fellow public sector workers “overpaid”, he at first refused to answer on the grounds that he never discusses what was or wasn’t said at cabinet meetings. After explaining that “overpaid … is a relative question”, as if the prefix “over” hadn’t gone a fair way towards making that point, he reiterated that he wouldn’t confirm or deny saying it because he never comments on the content of private meetings.

He was less reticent when asked why members of the Cabinet are ganging up on him by leaking his faux pas to the papers. In so far as it is possible to interpret the emotions of a poorly maintained second generation artificial life form, he seemed cross and out of sorts. “They shouldn’t have done that, frankly,” he prissily insisted. “Cabinet meetings are supposed to be private.” No wonder he was peevish. It must come as a crippling shock to discover, after 20 years in parliament and seven in the Cabinet, that politicians have a tendency to indiscretion.

Hammond made it clear that he blames the Cabinet’s hard Brexiteers for the leaks (one assumes he is thinking specifically of his two leadership rivals, Boris and David Davis, should the Tories decide that Theresa May’s value as a lightning rod has dwindled). Having confirmed this with surprising candour, he then dismissed the cabinet civil war angle as “silly season … tittle-tattle … gossip”, and a media confection. He then reconfirmed it by saying it would be helpful if the Cabinet leakers “shut up”.

Marr asked if he did make the remark about women and train driving. “No, I didn’t,” said he who never discusses what was or wasn’t said at a private meeting. Aha, went on Marr, but did May make the quip about removing your shovel? “Again, I don’t comment on what’s said in private meetings.”

If you talked like that in the GP’s consulting room, directly contradicting yourself in apparent ignorance of what you said four seconds ago, the doctor would ask you these three questions: 1) “What is your date of birth?”, 2) “What month are we in?”, and 3) “Can you tell me who the Prime Minister is?”.

Whoever it might be today, the next one will surely not be this prime candidate for the title Most Overpaid Public Sector Worker in Whitehall. Apart from his cussed ideological attachment to austerity, every new leader is chosen in large part as a corrective to the previous incumbent. One grey, middle aged robot with the charisma of a 1950s BBC continuity announcer, the rhetorical flair of a field of wheat, and the gift for radiating empathy of a comatose sociopath, should sate the Tory appetite. Two in a row would be suicide.