Alistair Darling has always been dull. Indeed, I had not thought it possible for him to get duller. But I was wrong. For yesterday Mr Darling came before us at the TUC in Brighton as the Human Drone. His mouth moved and the words coming out of it were English but, taken together, they meant nothing. Instead, they merged into one long tone, not unlike the sound of a telephone when it goes dead.

It was quite a feat and, if he loses his job as Chancellor, he may want to become a fairground attraction. The noise (it was hardly a speech) went on for 30 minutes. The comrades of the TUC, who'd spent the day stoking themselves up by calling to renationalise everything in Britain that isn't nailed down, treated him with politeness bordering on contempt. They sat, sullen, resentful, eyes down. Some read the paper. As Mr Darling reached the “climax” of his speech a man sitting on the stage could control himself no longer and opened his mouth in the biggest yawn I have seen outside a zoo.

I would give you highlights from the noise (sorry, speech) but there weren't any. He did not say one thing that everybody in Britain doesn't already know. Times are tough. The credit crunch is nothing to do with this Government. Families are feeling the pinch. “Times are tough,” he said. “But together we will get through it.”

Will we? I wasn't even sure I was going to make it through the next half hour, much less a recession. Over the summer, Mr Darling gave an interview in front of a peaty fire in his Hebridean croft in which he seemed in danger of coming across as a human being. Clearly that phase is over now. There was no trace of warmth or humour yesterday, nor any feeling that we were being told the truth about the economy. One lit match had more heat than his entire performance.

Everything about him was damped down, subdued. Even his eyebrows, which normally can be depended on to provide some light entertainment, had been tranquillised. It's amazing how he can say the words “I have said I am listening” in exactly the same way as he would say “I have said I am listening to the weather forecast” Reassuring? I don't think so.

He didn't mention Gordon Brown once. But then he didn't mention anyone else in the Cabinet, the business community, the world. Indeed, he hardly mentioned himself. He must be feeling rather alone and, actually, he may be right. There were hardly any Labour MPs there to offer their moral support. The closest thing to a star was Margaret Beckett.

The question-and-answer session provided the only passion of the entire non-event. The comrades hissed and jeered when he said private sector pay had gone up more than in the public sector. They mocked him over his lack of energy windfall tax. Mr Darling, in his only moment of emotion, doggedly defended his policy of loft lagging. “It's easy to knock it but actually it can cut people's fuel bills,” he insisted.

The applause from the Brothers Grim was parsimonious. Now I know what the sound of one and a half hands clapping sounds like. Mr Darling had been greeted by six seconds, max, of light finger tapping. During the speech there was no applause at all, which must be some kind of first. It ended with another six seconds of finger-tapping. Indeed, the only really heartfelt applause was when A. Darling, Human Drone, left the stage.

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