Cometh the hour, cometh the man. On Monday, Rishi Sunak had laid out his terrifying vision of the future. The collapse of western civilisation. A world of plague and pestilence. Where nuclear war had become a recreational hazard. The British government reduced to infants. Mewling and puking in their mothers’ arms.
Enter the Shappster. Man in tights. Rish!’s very own superhero. A nation can now sleep more easily. Death, where is thy dominion? In times of crisis, great men and women step forward to serve their country. Where would the UK have been in its darkest hour without Winston Churchill? And where would we all be now without Grant Shapps?
A defence secretary of infinite levitas. A man at whom we can all laugh our worries away. Who needs a regular army when you can reduce your enemies to fits of giggles? Grant has been Sunak’s one stroke of genius. An appointment so counterintuitive that it’s brilliant.
As our relations with Russia and China get colder and colder, the Shappster just gets warmer and warmer. A gag for every warhead. We might all be about to die, but at least we can go with an eternal smile on our faces. An everlasting kiss. La commedia is far from finita.
So, for whatever reason – it was his turn, someone had to do it, Rish! just fancied the LOLs – Grant Baby or Baby Grant was sent out to handle the morning media round. To reassure a sleepless nation that all was well. The apocalypse had been put back by at least 24 hours.
Say what you like about Grant, at least he’s not Michael Fallon. Then there’s the mysterious Ben Wallace. Truly, the UK has been blessed with its defence secretaries. It’s a miracle Dominic Raab was never considered for the job – a serial killer with anger management issues would have been an ideal fit.
I mean, you wouldn’t have trusted any of these men – no women allowed, obviously – to sell ice-creams on the beach or do a celebrity slot for Children in Need. But running the nation’s armed forces is a gimme.
First up was a slot on Good Morning Britain with Susanna Reid and Ed Balls. Susanna is the one with the brains. Ed just nods along and announces the ad breaks. Anyway, Susanna was very concerned about AI and deep fakes. Something the rest of the world has been talking about for the last couple of years, but which ITV has only just woken up to.
So who better to guide the nation through this current crisis than the Shappster? Surely, surely this must have been top trolling by Susanna. You get the defence secretary on your programme for 10 minutes and you spend the whole time taking the piss out of him. The newly created ministry of fun.
Only it turns out that Susanna is the only person – apart from Ed, and he doesn’t count – in the entire world who isn’t aware Grant Baby is something of an expert on deep fakes. Because he has at least three aliases in his locker. There’s Michael Green. Lovely man. There’s Sebastian Fox. Not quite so nice. Old-fashioned Tory boy. And not forgetting Corinne Stockheath.
What followed must surely qualify for award-winning TV. Certainly we will never see another interview with another cabinet minister quite like it. At least not until the next time Jeremy Hunt is on. Poor Jezza doesn’t even have one identity, let alone four.
“So,” said Susanna, blissfully unaware that she was looking a gift horse in the mouth. Or maybe I’m doing her a disservice and she just thinks it’s entirely normal to have a defence secretary who isn’t that sure who he is when he wakes up each morning. Tonight, Matthew, I’m going to be Michael.
The Shappster was totally unfazed. He always is. Whatever meds he is on, I need some myself. Even when he clearly knows nothing or has been exposed as a fraud, he just muddles on making stuff up. Keep Calm and Carry On Bullshitting. He feels invulnerable. I guess if Sebastian dies, then Corinne takes over.
Deep fakes were a big worry. But he was doing a lot of work behind the scenes to make the internet safer. But he couldn’t say what that was, otherwise he would have to kill Susanna.
“Thank you very much, Mr Shapps,” said Ed.
“Who is this Mr Shapps? I’m Michael.”
“Gosh, you look very like Grant Shapps.”
“Look at the badge. It says Michael.”
“That’s amazing,” Ed whispered. Failing to keep the wonder out of his voice.
Susanna pulled out a revolver. There was a loud bang. It wasn’t clear who had been shot.
Only it wasn’t Grant Baby. He’s like the wind. Always one step ahead of the crowd. He could now be found on the Today programme being interviewed by Justin Webb. Another unequal contest because no one can quite keep up with the quicksilver synaptic leaps of the defence secretary.
“You’re here to tell us about the six new ships you’re building,” said Justin, sounding understandably sceptical. Were these the same six ships the government had announced it would be building a couple of years ago?
“They seek me here, they seek me there, that damned elusive Corinnel.”
“Er … Quite.”
It was like this. They might be the same six ships or they might be a completely different six ships. He might just choose to build three of them. Though he had enough Airfix kits to build up to 28. There again, he might just get bored of the whole thing and build no ships at all. Was that clear? Try to think of the ships like a Potemkin village. If you don’t know how many you have or if they are real then neither do your enemies.
With one bound, the Shappster was free. Off to Lancaster House to give the keynote speech to the First Sea Lord’s conference. God knows what the navy make of Grant. Presumably they are all under orders to scuttle their ships at first light.
“Welcome to HMS Sebastian,” said Shapps. There was no point having more sailors, because they would only require more weapons and want somewhere to live. So better to have none at all. You can’t fault that logic. We should treasure Grant Baby while we can. We won’t see his like again.
