This week it was the turn of Michael Crowe to find himself in the spotlight at the House of Keys.
But if he was fearing a Spanish Inquisition style interrogation, it never quite materialised.
Nobody expected that.
The mild-mannered Treasury Minister had to deal with more than half of the questions, while his boss could sit back and relax.
They weren’t particularly easy questions. Increases in road fuel prices, structural deficits and what he plans to do to help the road haulage and agriculture industries.
Plus an immigration question thrown in for good measure.
So he may have been fearing the worst.
However, the new crop – of which he is one, lest we forget – have been behaving themselves.
Crowe, while not quite flying through the questions, acquitted himself quite well.
The truth is that, so far, the vast majority of the new faces are turning out to be disappointingly likeable.
I say disappointingly likeable in the journalistic sense, in that the number of hissy fits has been low.
They’re prepared to listen to answers, follow up with reasonable questions and accept that someone who has only been in the job for a few weeks probably isn’t the person to blame.
Give it a year and Tynwald will have knocked that out of them.
Stephen Broad, for instance, spoke forcefully for the haulage and agriculture industries, but still came across as quite reasonable.
Katryna Baptist, another of the main questioners, has the air of a potential mischief maker – and we do welcome those in politics – but she’s behaving at the moment.
Both of them were quite likeable during question time.
As was Crowe.
It’s very frustrating for a political sketch writer. But I must be patient.
It can take weeks, months, even years, to build up an appropriate level of disdain for politicians. I just need to give it time.
Post-it Note Charter
Back to Crowe’s performance. He’s clearly done a fair bit of public speaking before.
His voice trod a fine line between being reassuringly calm but just short of soporific. You don’t want to send your audience to sleep unless it’s really bad news.
It may have been a reflection of how well Crowe was doing that Chief Minister Chris Thomas only felt the need to intervene with his wisdom once during the minister’s answers.
Or maybe Thomas was just too busy writing his new Charter for Change on the back of a Post-it note.
Lights, Camera, Inaction
Tuesday saw the first ever livestream of the House of Keys Inaction.
Sorry, the first ever livestream of the House of Keys in action.
This was very exciting for all those involved. But if the viewing figures failed to get into triple figures, you’ll probably find they are not able to release them for some reason or another.
Speaker Ashy revelled in his role. As the presiding officer keeping order over 23 other MHKs, he’s basically already auditioning for the job of a gameshow host. He’s a natural.
Sadly, the bromance/double act of Jason and Alfie never even got going. Camera shy. But surely this was their chance to shine?
I spotted at least one new haircut, but it may have been a coincidence.
In a classic case of closing the Keys door after the politicians have bolted, at the end of the sitting a figure was spotted distributing privacy screens to the ministers for use on their laptops.
One can only speculate what someone spotted on the livestream.
