Three years ago almost no one had heard of Andrea Leadsom. Not even her South Northamptonshire constituents. She was the archetypal anonymous MP who’d made a career out of saying little and doing less. But then she came to public attention when she unexpectedly made it to the last two of the Tory leadership election after David Cameron resigned.

Leadsom had started her campaign in exemplary fashion by keeping her mouth firmly shut and letting Stephen Crabb, Liam Fox and Michael Gove disqualify themselves by opening theirs. Things started to go wrong only when she began to raise her profile.

First she announced she was going to be making a speech on the economy. This proved to be comedy gold, as she managed to talk for all of 20 minutes and didn’t get round to mentioning the economy once. Then she handed out pale blue #RALLY4LEADSOM T-shirts, which she’d just collected from Prontaprint, to the few dozen supporters who had come to hear her die on her feet, and led an Idiots’ Platoon march on Westminster.

Joining her on the 400-metre stroll were the Brexiter deadbeats Tim Loughton and Theresa Villiers, who tried to keep spirits up with chants of “Who do we want? Andrea Leadsom! When do we want her? Sometime in September.” Once the unhappy few reached parliament, no one could quite remember what they were meant to be doing there and everyone shuffled away in a state of embarrassment. Days later, Leadsom gave an interview in which she claimed her main qualification to be prime minister was having had children, and her leadership campaign was over.

You’d have thought that would have been that for Leadsom’s career. But in the ongoing straight-to-DVD horror movie of the post-Brexit Conservative party, being completely hopeless was more than enough to earn her a place in the cabinet. First as environment secretary, until it became clear that the outdoors was not her natural habitat, and then as leader of the Commons, a post usually earmarked for those being eased gently out of public life.

Yet Leadsom has once again defied the odds by rising without trace. The allocation of parliamentary time for Brexit-related business has given the leader’s office unexpected prominence, and Leadsom now roams the Commons chamber with a sense of ownership. This is her time and she is enjoying every minute of it. She has become a role model for people with little ability everywhere. God stand up for mediocrities!

In some ways Theresa May is making it easy for her. Since the prime minister really doesn’t know what she’s doing from one day to the next, it is a routine job for Leadsom to keep parliament in the dark about what the government is up to. Just before she got to her feet for her weekly Commons outing, she checked her diary. Completely blank. Perfect. Just as it should be.

Everyone was very tired after being called upon to vote seven times on Tuesday, so she was going to make sure MPs had an easy schedule for the following week. On Monday there would be a general debate on sport: whether it was a good idea or not. Tuesday and Wednesday would be largely clear and on Thursday there would be another general debate, this time on antisocial behaviour: was it a good thing or a bad thing? Friday was free time.

Having effectively given everyone a week off, Leadsom then proceeded to inform the house that it had been so late in handing in its Brexit homework that the February half-term was likely to be cancelled. All skiing holidays and winter breaks to the Canaries were off. Worried MPs could consult the bursar in regard to refunds, but she wasn’t making any firm promises either way as the house had brought this all on itself.

Her Labour shadow, Valerie Vaz, was understandably a bit put out. Why hadn’t she said last week when she’d been asked about it? And why couldn’t they do more Brexit business next week, as there were still 600 statutory instruments to be tabled and debated? How confident on a scale of one to 10 was she that the government would get everything done before 29 March?

Leadsom peered over the top of her glasses. It was precisely that kind of snippy attitude that had led her to dispense with half-term. And no, she couldn’t say when the house was going to next have a chance to talk about Brexit. Nor could she promise they would do so during the February detention. Instead, there would be more generic debates. Which make the best pets: dogs or cats? Discuss.

Parliament had to learn, and learn fast. The point of the next two months wasn’t for everyone to sit around and do nothing. It was for them to sit around and be seen to be doing nothing. End of lesson. Back to work. Not that anyone had any.