Never let it be said that the Conservative Party lacks a sense of priority. As the drought-stricken nation spirals towards a Weimaresque economic meltdown, the last remaining Tory leadership candidates – Rishi Rich and Cosplay Thatcher – are locked in a to-the-death struggle to see which of them can work themselves up into a bigger lather about human rights (now officially a Bad Thing, apparently) and trans people’s pronouns.
It’s perhaps unfair that we should be forced, as a nation, to watch this desperate race to the ethical bottom given that the vast majority of us won’t participate in the final vote… The “selectorate” to whom the two candidates are trying to appeal is a pretty narrow bunch, demographically speaking, and as such one might expect them to (pretend to) fixate on some fairly niche topics.
Nonetheless, it’s now clear that it’s been decided that this showdown will be fought on literally anything except the issues (since both candidates were, after all, cabinet ministers in the government that created those issues), and so with this in mind here are Some Even Less Relevant Things That The Tory Leadership Candidates Could Go On About…
WHETHER YOU PUT THE CREAM OR THE JAM FIRST ON SCONES
A vexed question indeed, one that splits whole families. One imagines Sunak to be a jam-first sort of guy, provided of course that the jam in question has been specially imported from Provence and served in a Waterford crystal jam dish with a Villeroy & Boch .925 silver spoon. Truss will most likely come down firmly on the side of cream first before issuing a hasty retraction, denying she ever said cream first, insisting she’s never heard of cream and then desperately Google imagesearching to see which way round Mrs Thatcher did it.
WHETHER THAT DRESS WAS WHITE AND GOLD OR BLUE AND BLACK.
Sunak will face something of a dilemma here; given that it’s the Conservative Party membership he’s trying to kiss up to, he probably wants to be mentioned in the same sentence as the word “white” as often as possible. On the other hand, he’s getting a bit self-conscious about how fabulously wealthy he is and as such might not wish to be associated with “gold”.
Truss, meanwhile, will have no hesitation in declaring that the dress is true blue and always has been, just like herself (apart from the years she spent as a Liberal Democrat).
MAC OR PC
As a lifelong Apple nerd, it pains me to acknowledge that Sunak has “Mac Guy” written all over him – if for no other reason that Macs tend to be more expensive than their IBM-friendly equivalent models. You don’t spend £180 on a self-warming coffee cup and then skimp on your laptop.
Truss, asked about the relative merits of the Mac and the PC, would probably give an impassioned speech in favour of the traditional British raincoat and against the stifling heterodoxy of political correctness, before someone explained to her what “Mac” and “PC” referred to in this context, whereupon she would stare into space for about six minutes before saying something about the unions.
STAR WARS OR STAR TREK
Might be a bit of a non-starter this one, as I suspect that both candidates will turn out to be Trekkies… I think Sunak would appreciate the fact that Star Trek has always been ahead of the curve in its depiction of ethnic diversity (and might indeed wish that more Conservative Party members approved of this than current polling suggests to be the case), while Truss would fall into the Trek camp by default; she doesn’t like Star Wars because the Empire keeps losing.
WHO WOULD WIN IN A FIGHT BETWEEN THE HULK AND WOLVERINE
Since 20th Century Fox (who owned the rights to the X-Men) was absorbed by the Disney corporation (who own the rest of the Marvel Universe), comic and movie fans have been tantalised by the prospect of the two most indestructible characters in graphic novel lore finally running into each other in the same movie. Who would prevail? The all-but invulnerable radioactive rage-giant or the instant-healing metal-boned badass?
Will we see this? Will Disney go for a full reboot on the X-Men or will they get Hugh Jackman back one last time? How will that sit in the overall continuity? What does this have to do with the Tories? Have I just gone off on a massive nerd-tangent? Can I pull it back?
Erm… Rishi is Team Hulk because angry dork, Liz is Team Logan ’cos, you know, phwoar.
POEM OF THE WEEK
The reservoirs are running dry
The streams no longer flow
Alas, the water companies cry
Where will the sewage go?
