Less than a fortnight left of the Tories’ 14-year general election campaign, and they’re panic-packing their five stages of grief into one big emotional carry-on for the holidays. Bafta nominee Rishi Sunak choppered out to a North Sea oil rig, scrambled into hi-vis and earnestly insisted the Conservatives could win this election. Elsewhere Tory MPs got angry with HQ for pulling resources from their doomed constituencies, and indignant at getting blamed for things Conservative governments had done years before Brexit – it wasn’t fair! Others were bargaining behind the scenes for a role in a new, batshit opposition. Others weaponised their depression, darkly warning that if Labour got a supermajority it would serve us all right. At least the 77 stage-five Tory MPs standing down have accepted reality and are cheerfully contemplating a life outside politics.
Boris Johnson surfaced, as though waking from some terrible dream in which he’d single-handedly steered an 80-seat Tory majority into an extinction-level event. Yeah, Big Dog was back, scent-marking his way across social media. He appeared to be in some sort of pantry, urging people to vote Insert Name Here for Select Constituency. He looked even rougher than usual, as if he’d come straight from breakfast at Wetherspoon’s, his big bollocky bilious face ballooning with quease beneath the trademark multi-directional hairdo. Which looks adorable on anyone younger than eight but, let’s be honest, really fucking creepy on a 60-year-old. Still, at least he’s putting in the effort, it’s not as if, oh, his memoirs. The book’s called Unleashed, which is how we all want big dogs in our public spaces, isn’t it – crapping everywhere, ignoring sexual boundaries and worrying toddlers. HarperCollins says it will be “honest … ” ha ha stop, what?
This is just the weirdest campaign period ever, and I can remember Harold Wilson doing a photoshoot with the Beatles. Nothing’s happening, at a chaotic speed, everywhere all at once. Was it on Monday or Tuesday a grinning Sunak failed to feed that flock of sheep? The opposite of shepherding, one of his many signature live-action metaphors. Was it today that Ed Davey won a race pushing a yellow wheelbarrow? Or was he building sandcastles? Who cares, his clown-of-the-people persona apparently demonstrates that the Lib Dems are definitely the guys to put the brakes on any mad nonsense Labour has in mind. And fair enough, Nick Clegg and his Vichy Democrat colleagues did a bang-up job as junior coalition partners between 2010 and 2015, didn’t they? Thank God they prevented George Osborne’s austerity programme, 130,000 avoidable deaths, the evisceration of our criminal justice system and record levels of child poverty. Wait, sandcastles. It was sandcastles today, wheelbarrow race yesterday.
Labour may be running a pedestrian campaign of its own but it’s running a great one for the Tories. Seriously, whose bright idea was it to release a gambling-themed attack ad after the Tory candidate (and Sunak’s parliamentary aide) Craig Williams admitted placing a bet on the election date? AND after a copper from the PM’s close protection team had been arrested as a result of the same Gambling Commission investigation? Cue a spinning roulette wheel and the message: “If you bet on Labour, you can never win.” At that point you could still have a punt on a Labour victory but at odds of 1/50. The ad appeared minutes before news that a second Tory candidate, Laura Saunders, was also being investigated. And she’s married to the Conservative director of campaigns, Tony Lee, who – what are the odds? – has taken leave of absence.
From betting to vetting. Some very disgruntled moaning from the Reform party, which is not like it at all. It claims to have paid £144,000 to a vetting agency to run background checks on its candidates. As a precaution. In case anyone had, for example, suggested Britain should have remained neutral in the second world war, or had praised Hitler’s “brilliant” ability to inspire. The agency said there hadn’t been time to run proper checks as it was expecting an autumn election, like the bookies.
So yeah, if anyone needs to vet their membership, I’m pleased to offer this service at the knockdown price of £143,000. I’d ask proper questions too, such as: “Thinking about Adolf Hitler and his ability to motivate, would you say he was very brilliant, quite brilliant, or slightly brilliant?” And, “Thinking about the second world war, should Britain have gone into Europe, gone a little way into Europe and then out again, or stayed securely within our national borders, nurturing our culture?” And, “Thinking about the film The Zone of Interest, whose side were you on: the Nazi who was just doing his job, his Nazi bosses, or the Nazi hosts of that big party?”
Earlier in the week, Reform launched its manifesto at a social club in Merthyr Tydfil. From the outside it looked grim, the sort of place that may in a counterfactual world be “processing illegals”. Nigel Farage said the manifesto was called a contract because “when I say manifesto you think lie”. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said the costed plans didn’t make sense, added up in fact to a massive untruth. Farage said, so what, it’s just a wishlist, we’re not going to win until 2029 anyway. Sidebar: why, in every photograph – clutching a pint, getting a milkshake in the face – does he look as though he’s been Photoshopped in by Cold War Steve? No matter, he has an ability to motivate people, which in this volatile political climate makes him very brilliant.
Watching Keir Starmer droning on during the BBC’s Question Time leaders’ debate I had a mild and boring epiphany. That’s who he is – the speed awareness course leader I had to listen to for a whole interminable afternoon. It’s the clipped, sanctimonious tone. “Oh, you may point the finger of blame …” I imagined Speed Awareness Starmer saying to the Tories, “… but there’ll always be three fingers pointing back at you, yes?”
Ian Martin is a comedy writer whose credits include The Thick of It and Veep. His latest book, So You Think You Can Be Prime Minister, is published in September
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