'Make a point via a joke and it has tripled in power' comedian David Mitchell talks about his new book

It’s impossible to tell what David Mitchell is really angry about. One minute he will tell you, in all seriousness, that lobbying has a “massively corrosive” effect on British politics. And, with the next breath, he says anyone who uses chocolate-flavoured toothpaste is a moron.

So in a way it’s no wonder to learn that the columnist, Peep Show star and panel show perennial cut his comedic teeth at Abingdon School debating society.

“In that forum,” he says, “if you stood up and said something that made people laugh, you would win the debate.”

Mitchell, who grew up in Headington, went to Abingdon School after attending New College prep school, Oxford, that was founded in 1397. Now he flexes his debating muscles on BBC1’s Would I Lie to You? in which panellists have to convince opposing teams of an unbelievable truth, which is coincidentally the title of the Radio 4 panel show he hosts, when not appearing on QI or filming Peep Show with his comedic partner Robert Webb.

“Humans are susceptible to the rhetorical power of a joke,” continues David, “and that’s a good thing and a bad thing.

“If someone makes a point through a joke it’s tripled in power.

“Not only have you made an argument the audience can follow; you’ve also made the contrary argument ridiculous. If you have managed to do that, you’ve won.”

Mitchell’s devious debating tactics are on full display in his new book, Thinking About it Only Makes it Worse: And Other Lessons From Modern Life.

Chapter headings include Taking Offence, Demanding Apologies, Making People Do Things and Stopping People Doing Things – A Guide to Modern Hobbies, and Don’t Expect Too Much of Robots.

In summary, he says, “It’s a collection of what I think are the most entertaining things I have written about in the last few years which, put together, point to worrying developments in Britain since the credit crunch. The things that will drag us down.”

If it sounds depressing, don’t be put off. If one man can make a credit crunch funny it’s David Mitchell on a rant, and these straightened economic times are evidently rich pickings for the satirist.

“For me," he says, “making people laugh is the most important thing, that is what I love to do, and a lot of where I get material is finding things that are daft or illogical, and I get on my slightly jokey high horse. But I can't do that about things I don’t really believe.”

Asked for an example, he doesn’t skip a beat.

“Lobbying in UK politics is a massively corrosive; a comparatively easy problem to fix and our democracy would be much healthier without it. I really do feel that, but then there are other things like the fact Crest brought out a chocolate toothpaste based on the fact people are bored by brushing their teeth. I completely do think anyone who needs chocolate toothpaste to make the five minutes you spend brushing your teeth less boring is an absolute moron. And I enjoy getting on my high horse about it.”

The underlying connection between the two, in case you missed it, is that curse of modern society, and an old favourite of stand-up comedians and politicians, the short attention span.

“Because we have a short attention span, that’s the way politics is practised.

“Politicians will stand up and give an eye-catching initiative, and that’s the way lobbying works as well. The lobbyists will say to a politician, ‘you’re worried about obesity and our client [an un-named fast food chain] wants to get off the hook so why don’t you do an eye-catching initiative and we’ll chuck a few quid your way for jogging and you’ll back off attacking fast food’.”

So why is it, then, that Mitchell works himself into one his famous froths over the most vacuous subjects like flavoured toothpaste?

He returns to debating society.

“I always found the dreary subjects made better debates. It's very hard to be funny about something that's already funny, for example taking a news story, if just telling someone what happened would make them laugh. But equally if the subject is absolutely tragic it's very hard.

“You want the stuff in the middle. Personalities, jealousy and failure, there you will find fertile ground.”

And that, he says, is why politics will always provide so much comedic material.

“The great thing about politics for comedy is that it’s full of people, and people you can point at and say ‘he’s got his balls caught up in a harness trying to demonstrate something’, whether they are actually interesting or not.” (Mitchell is refering to the now-famous occasion on which Mayor of London Boris Johnson attempted to demonstrate a new zip wire installed in Hackney for the 2012 Olympics - and got stuck half way.) So, in this world of politically-correct madness, advertising campaigns dreamt up by morons and evil politicians, why doesn’t Mitchell use his rhetorical skills to create a better tomorrow?

“Very occasionally, I feel maybe I have a little bit of power,” he concedes, but he says it is the uniquely transient power of the satirist.

“The Day Today, which was a brilliant show created by Chris Morris, was an absolutely savage satire of the way TV news conducts itself. But then you watch the news and realise it’s had zero impact. It attacked the self-serving horse manure of TV news, and if anything they took presentation and design ideas from it.

“People like the absurdity of something poked fun of with a joke but it doesn’t often change the world.”

Besides which, he adds: “I don’t want to have power and feel responsible.”

So, if you feel moved to go out and change the world after reading David Mitchell’s new book, don’t blame him when you get arrested for scaling a cooling tower with a protest banner – he was only joking.

* Thinking About it Only Makes it Worse: And Other Lessons From Modern Life, published by Guardian Faber, is available in hardback for £8.45 or on Kindle for £4.79.

* David Mitchell will be signing copies of his book at Waterstone’s in Broad Street, today from 4.30-5.15pm. Arrive early to avoid disappointment. Signed copies can be reserved and delivered if you are unable to attend. Contact the store for details.

* He will also be speaking tonight at Abingdon School’s Amey Theatre.