As I’m sure you’ll be aware, my own industry (comedy, in case you were wondering) has been rocked this last week by startling revelations that I’ll simply say were perhaps rather less startling to those of us IN the industry than they may have been to the rest of you. But it’s all pretty grim and not exactly satire material. I certainly wouldn’t open with it.
Meanwhile, I’m so hopelessly out of the loop at the moment (the news being so relentlessly depressing that I’m rationing it to myself in small, digestible bursts) that when, a few days ago, I was confronted with the headline “XL BULLY TO BE BANNED” I naturally assumed that XL Bully was a fat rapper whose gratuitously confrontational and sweary lyrics had led to his being “cancelled” (as the kids call it these days). But again, the truth of the matter is somewhat less thigh-slappingly amusing.
Those were the only really eye-catching (and/or stomach-turning) new developments since last we met; the rest of the news is the grindingly familiar greatest hits of the slow-motion death spiral that is Britain in 2023.
I was just about to call TNE Towers, feign illness and blag a week off when, to my surprise, who should come to my rescue but our next ex-prime minister himself, “Rags To” Rishi Sunak.
On a visit to New Delhi, the fabulously wealthy yet bizarrely tailored PM announced himself utterly confident that the Conservatives will win the next election and that he himself will remain in office for at least another five years.
Finally; something to have a good laugh at. You’re a lifesaver, Rishi.
Assuming that he’s actually serious (and he might indeed be, even if he’s patently not confident enough about winning the election to, you know, call an election) just what bizarre set of circumstances does the PM envisage arising over the course of the next 15 months to ensure this triumph?
Here are some possibilities:
ALIENS INVADE (AND ARE SUCCESSFULLY REPELLED)
As those of us creaky enough to remember the Falklands war of 1982 know only too well, nothing turns around the electoral fortunes of an unpopular government like a successful military campaign. We probably don’t have the resources to mount an invasion ourselves just now, so what we’d need is for someone else to invade us.
And as every other nation in the world can see that there’s nothing about Britain that’s currently WORTH invading, our best hope is for aliens – maybe those tiny three-fingered types whose corpses have been on display in Mexico – to attack Earth, and choose to begin by conquering the home counties, just as they did in War Of The Worlds and two-thirds of Jon Pertwee-era Doctor Who stories.
If, as HG Wells predicted, the aliens score some early successes then suddenly expire from the flu, our leaders can always claim that this is all due to our world-beating vaccine rollout, which would never have been possible when we were in the EU.
THEY ACTUALLY STOP THE BOATS
Now we know of course that STOPPING the boats is the last thing the government wants; it would deprive them of their primary source of red meat for the racists – erm, I mean, the “economically anxious”. But they may yet do it by accident: if Britain can be reduced to a toxic, bankrupt wasteland – as certainly appears to be the plan at the moment – then no refugee in their right mind would WANT to come here, and the boats will stop all by themselves! Victory! Vote for us!
KEIR STARMER IS UNMASKED LIVE ON TV
I’m sure Rishi has dreams in which, while getting his weekly pasting at PMQs, he strides across the floor of the House, grabs Keir Starmer firmly by the quiff, gives it a good yank and unmasks him Scooby Doo villain-style to reveal – JEREMY CORBYN!
Yes, it’s been him all along! That whole going back on all his policy pledges, firing everyone who liked him and withdrawing the whip from himself has just been an elaborate sextuple bluff! And he would have got away with it too, if it hadn’t been for this meddling prime minister.
Well a PM can dream, can’t he?
GOD COMES DOWN FROM HEAVEN AND COMMANDS EVERYONE TO VOTE TORY
This is pretty much what it would take to get most people to vote Conservative next time, and while even His appearance might not convince some of the most ardent atheists, screw it – a celebrity endorsement is a celebrity endorsement.
THINGS ACTUALLY START GETTING BETTER
Oh come on, be serious.
POEM OF THE WEEK
Two Tory Party candidates
To everyone’s surprise
Were banished from the party
’Cos they might be Chinese spies
MI5 were watching them
And asked the party “Please
“Don’t put them up for parliament
“They might work for the Chinese”
So many issues this throws up
About vetting procedure
But surprisingly scant coverage
In the right wing media
But while our country seemingly
Lives on under a curse
If the Chinese ran the government
Could things get any worse?
