WORDS: Punk Food Bandita
As a vacancy within the Conservative party for Top Bastard comes up for grabs, ten of their finest are taking time out from dragging the country into a Black Mirror dystopia in order to jostle and backstab each other on their way to get to number 10.
In such scenarios, politicians trip over themselves to brag about their eligibility and promise us the world if we just pick them. While we, the general public don't get to choose the next leader (that's down to conservative MPs, then party members), public opinion of the prospective candidates is deemed important and they will temporarily drop their disdain of us and make a series of awkward attempts to flirt with and seduce us into a false sense of security. It's like Love Island, only with ex public schoolers with offshore accounts who gush how their dream is to work with proles and would love to see one in the wild.
So who have we got trying to romance us with their wild promises and wolffish smiles?
Jeremy Hunt- no one has the capacity to make you talk dirty more than Jeremy Hunt, though this is more to do with his surname’s rhyming twin that rolls so easy off the tongues of media presenters and will undoubtedly soon be proven to be some sort of cognitive bias. Safe sex is a must with Jeremy, as he would like to see the abortion time limit reduced to 12 weeks, if there are even any doctors left after the damage he inflicted on resources and morale during his time as health secretary. A bit of private time is always on the cards with him as privatisation is Jeremy’s middle name.
He literally wrote a book about how to sell the NHS then tried to convince us all it was safe with in his hands, so maybe not a match if you don’t think you should use google to determine whether your child’s rash is indicative of meningitis, as he suggested parents should do in 2016. However if you’re looking for a man to stick around, whether you want him to or not, then you’ve found your guy. Even when the entire NHS workforce, the opposition and the general public were demanding his resignation, he refused to leave, making sure he got his £44,000 bathroom paid for by the public first, while he demanded 22 billion cuts to our health service.
Sajid Javid- The only time anyone has shown a positive preference for Sajid was when he recently came under verbal attack from Donald Trump, a man so overwhelmingly despised and ridiculed by the British that they felt almost compelled to come to his defence slightly. Sajid is the last season of Game Of Thrones. You felt nothing but frustration and disappointment at it, but would still make a half arsed attempt to find a good point when someone who had never watched it slagged it off. Sajid will rip your clothes- sorry, I mean your British Citizenship- right off you whether its legal under international law or not, now he’s tested the waters with a teenager who was allowed to leave the country on someone else’s passport after being radicalised online. I mean he’ll let the men who were actually out there fighting and killing innocent people come back, but not a girl and her infant child, who was left to die. Sajid’s passions are fighting with Boris and questioning whether migrants fleeing war, risking them and their children’s lives on boats with traffickers are ‘genuine’ as if any member of the Conservative party ever knew the meaning of that word.
Michael Gove- If you’re looking for a party, then Michael Gove is your boy. He recently revealed he took cocaine as a journalist in the 90’s. Something no one would have given a pixie’s chuff about had he not been happy to ruin teachers careers for being caught in possession of even the tiniest amount of powder and who’s party’s drug policies allows people making cannabis oil for cancer patients to be dragged out of their homes by armed police and put in jail. During his time as education secretary he was as popular within UK schools as an outbreak of head lice. The National Union Of Teachers unanimously passed a vote of no confidence against him after he showed breathtaking incompetence and arrogance in his policies and negotiating style, leading to a strike. Hobbies include drinking water and hilariously selling out his own colleagues for his own self gain.
Esther McVey- Esther faced embarrassment this week when it was revealed she paid £8750 on a personal photographer on expenses, presumably because that is how much it costs to find one skilled enough to make her show up on film. She also gave a speech behind a framed picture of Margaret Thatcher, a woman who destroyed virtually all industry north of Watford and was also revealed via FoI (Freedom Of Information) to have known about allegations of the child sexual abuse among named MP’s, such as Cyril Smith and Peter Morrison, as well as her friend Jimmy Saville, which she failed to do anything about. Esther is currently free as a bird as she was rejected by the entire city of Liverpool who have revoked her scouse card on account of her open contempt of ordinary working class people. Her part in the implementation of Universal Credit has left vulnerable people dead or further in poverty. She has absolutely no remorse for the irreversible damage the scheme has caused, or for her misleading parliament on the recommendations for UC in a National Audit Office report.
Matt Hancock- The pity fuck out of all our contenders. Matt isn’t really very good at anything, even lying, which is vital if you are to be a successful Tory politician. He literally named an app he created “Matt Hancock”, so I’m guessing there is definitely a mirror on this man’s bedroom ceiling as well. Matt is adorably clumsy, accidentally chartering private planes back from conferences on climate change and tweeting poems about how the Labour Party is “full of queers”. What is he like, eh?
Mark Harper- The former government Chief Whip is our “untarnished campaigner” apparently. The one who tells everyone how hard it is for nice guys to get dates, while behaving anything but. Because the thing about tories is they think we have incredibly short memories. Mark was immigration minister when the infamous “Go Home” anti immigration vans were going round. Mark ended up having to resign when it was discovered his own cleaner of 7 years, Isabella Acevedo, didn’t have permission to work in the UK. Horrifically she was arrested by border agency officers while she waited at the registry office for her daughters wedding, taken to the infamous Yarls Wood where countless allegations of sexual abuse from staff have been raised, and then deported to Columbia. There is nothing to suggest that Harper did anything to help the woman who had worked for him for so long, while he faced no criminal investigation for his part in the tale.
Dominic Raab- Here is a real man’s man. Dominic doesn’t see any issue with the gender pay gap, saying women got more than enough rights as we already had Sheila’s Wheels and women only gyms, which are total discrimination by the way, when you give no thought whatsoever as to why the latter might exist in the first place. Dominic is the living embodiment of whataboutery and ‘not all men’ when it comes to anything to do with women. He doesn’t believe food bank users are in poverty either, showing a real flair of forming opinions on the lives of people who’s experiences he knows absolutely nothing about. Dominic’s grasp of trade and geography are equally impressive, having been stumped by the revelation that the Dover-Calais crossing was quite important when considering future Brexit deals. Dominic enjoys burning his briefs in his spare time, for reasons that no one was ever able to quite fathom, but honestly we are here to support his choices.
Andrea Leadsom A real catch this one, unless you happen to be a male nanny who will automatically be vetoed by her as she thinks they could well be a paedophile. Andrea is a big fan of fox hunting, and is glad it is still thriving, despite it being illegal, demonstrating just how much Conservatives believe they are above the laws of their own house. In 2008 she also claimed that the Baby P case was evidence of how non married couples were “proving fatal to the next generation”. Andrea believes that the definition of Islamophobia should be a matter for the foreign office and gets a bit flustered on the question of gay marriage or adoption. In her spare time she enjoys fracking and questioning whether climate change is real.
Boris Johnson Goodness, where to even start. Boris wants to give tax breaks to his rich friends, which he wants you to pay for by raising national insurance contributions, because he knows just how much poor people love paying tax and rich people don’t. The first winner of the Prince Phillip Award for lifetime commitment to racism, Boris has compared Muslim women wearing the burka to letterboxes, referred to black Africans as “picaninnies” with “watermelon smiles”.
Natalie Rowe, author of the book ‘Whipping Up A Storm” in which she reveals her time as a dominatrix who spent time with several prominent figures, has addressed Boris directly on Twitter about the time she says he made monkey noises at her during a party and tried to give her a watermelon. He likes to hang out with everyone’s favourite white supremacist potato, syphylitic Steve Bannon. Its not all bad though. According to him during his 2005 Henley campaign, voting Conservative will give your wife bigger tits. Whether she wants them or not seemingly. The truth is, Boris will tell you absolutely anything you want to hear, while shamelessly backtracking on it later once he has what he wants. By which time he will relentlessly gaslight you into believing he never made any such promises, even if he wrote them on a double decker bus.
Rory Stewart Ah, Rory. The ultimate catfisher in our race. He’s the contender even some on the left are trying to swipe right on. “Oh but he seems like an alright bloke” they coo “He seems different for a Tory” they whisper, as if feeling guilty of even comparing him to the rest. Yeah, he’s a really nice Tory who voted in favour of repealing the human rights act, against investigations into the Iraq war, pretty much always votes in favour of military operations overseas, but against raising welfare benefits and higher benefits over longer periods for the sick and disabled, as well as always voting for more restrictions on trade union activity. Really he’s just like every other Tory, but gives the illusion of niceness on account of he went on holiday by himself to the Himalayas and recited TS Eliot once and doesn’t seem to hate gay people.
The fact is we deserve better than any of these. The fact is we shouldn't have to have one of these inflicted on us against our will yet again, like we did with Gordon Brown and Theresa May.
In a recent poll, the Daily Express asked its readers who they wanted to be the next prime minister, giving the choices of Boris Johnson (17%), Jeremy Hunt (5%), Andrea Leadsom (3%) or Other- comment below (75%). Turns out that three quarters of that 75% specified ‘Jeremy Corbyn’, which given the right wing bias of that particular newspaper, probably wasn’t what they wanted to hear. Whether you agree with support of the current Labour Leader or not, it’s clear people are fed up. Even the Brexit party which has had some voting success isn’t cutting it, as its filled with former Tories all pulling exactly the same wool over our eyes while showing utter contempt for the very people they claim too represent.
Politicians need to be held accountable for the lies they tell when they want something from us. Anyone of us displaying a fraction of the dishonesty or incompetence in our own jobs would lead to instant dismissal, not being ushered into another cosy well paid job until the dust settles. No matter what they try to do to us, we must keep our expectations and standards high, not accepting another well spoken imposter who doesn’t seem quite as bad as the rest as he has slightly more people skills and smiles more than the others.
We’ve made that mistake before and he shagged a pigs head then called a referendum that divided the entire country.