Michael Gove, the Government Chief Whip, was left floundering and he fumbled "for quite a while" when music started emanating from his watch during a Cabinet meeting.
Onlookers assumed it was the ringtone on his mobile phone, banned from such meetings on security grounds. One described it as "Jazz FM-style comedown music after a heavy night out" and another as a "female ballad", The Telegraph reported.
Sarah Vine was more than happy to set the record straight in a newspaper column that the favoured tune was in fact "Beyonce's latest oeuvre".
Vine disclosed that it was not in fact the contraband mobile phone that had got her husband into hot water but a new Pebble Smartwatch she had bought him for Christmas.
"Despite its unprepossessing appearance, the Pebble is quite a powerful little thing," she explained.
"And so it was that just as the Chancellor of the Exchequer was explaining a particularly complex piece of fiscal policy to Her Majesty's assembled Cabinet, my husband mistakenly instructed his watch to play Beyonce's latest oeuvre," she said.
Eventually, Gove managed to switch off the watch, but not before he had received a stern reprimand from the Prime Minister himself.
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