I fear that Tessa Jowell may be peaking too early in her bid for gold in the new event of Olympic gibberish. She’s only been in training for a year but yesterday in the Commons she already was almost totally nonsensical. Now I’m not complaining. We need all the gold medals we can get (though the Olympics, of course, are not about winning). But she needs to pace herself to make sure she doesn’t reach top gibberish form until 2012.

Such is her mastery that she is already giving lessons in talking nonsense to James Purnell, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. Indeed, I understand that she is Mr Purnell’s personal gibberish trainer. Both were on the front bench, talking as much gibberish as possible (practice makes perfect). Ms Jowell, whose new Joan of Arc haircut would provide the perfect anchorage for a laurel wreath, looked on proudly as Mr Purnell stood up.

Mr Purnell wants everything to be “world-class”. We are world class in elite sport. What is that anyway? Relay races for butlers? Weight-lifting for Bentley owners? Whatever it is, we’re brilliant at it. “The Australians are now copying us rather than it being the other way round!” he cried. (I think, though, that there are fewer butlers in Australia anyway.)

We want to be a “world-class sporting nation”. This seemed a bit much as, to date, we are world-class only in binge drinking and latte ordering. But that’s going to change because most children are now doing two hours of sport a week. Wow. I bet China is in a panic about that. But there’s more. We are also going to be world-class in “community sport”. To do this we need “world-class community sport infrastructure”. What does it mean?

Tessa Jowell looked on proprietorially as Mr Purnell warbled. She took some notes at how he could make less sense. Then she stood up and showed him how it was done. In Suduko terms, Ms Jowell may already be at “fiendish” levels of gibberish.

The question was whether the 2012 Olympic Games would be on budget and if all of the contingency fund would have to be spent. Ms Jowell stood up and smiled sweetly (a vital tactic for gibberish masters). “The contingency provision which is available to the Olympic Delivery Authority at just over £2 billion is net of £500 million, which has already been allocated through the internal government funders’ committee to the Olympic Delivery Authority.”

Eyes were glazing in world-class time. But Ms Jowell was not content, for she is driven in her desire for gold. “The answer is that contingency meets risk and, no, it’s not certain that the whole contingency will be drawn down but the chairman of the Olympic Development Agency is absolutely right: we will only be clear about that once the Games are over but the probability assessment which confirms the robustness of the budget gives us ground for optimism that not all the contingency will be used.”

This magnificent sentence was made all the more impressive by the fact that Ms Jowell did not breathe while delivering it. This requires world-class lung capacity and is the equivalent of swimming underwater for two lengths. I understand that she has been doing exactly that at her world-class community sporting infrastructure (also known as the local pool). Gibberish is not like darts: you have to be fit to reach the top.

Mr Purnell watched, starry-eyed. He mustn’t despair. There’s plenty of time for him to be world-class in talking utter rubbish too.

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