Marquess of Queensbury

The highlight of yesterday's Select Committee card was the two-round all-Tory contest between Lord Patten (wet, 68, son of an RAF jazz-drummer turned music publisher; Balliol, Oxford) and Philip Davies, MP (bone-dry, 40, son of  an English-teacher turned English Democrat Mayor and a Doncaster bookmaker; Huddersfield University).

Some (Guido Fawkes) shaded it to Davies, who landed with "Patsy" and "Patronising", but most judged it a tko for Lord Patten, who had the last words with "Unworthy","Impertinent" and "Socratic Dialogue". A nodding Nicholas Kroll was in the Lord's corner, in the Angelo Dundee role, ready to hold coats, should there have been an invitation to step outside.