There’s an air of hope permeating through Britain at the moment, isn’t there? A subtle but infectious new variant of political optimism that frankly we’re not used to on the Left. It’s the sort of optimism and enthusiasm that exists in friends who don’t quite get it. It’s usually found more in the mentally impaired, to be honest. Or in children. Or Americans. But now it’s rendering people like me positive - and it’s disgusting. I find myself hopeful the Tories might get a very-public spanking on May 6th. I find myself reassured that - if polls are to be believed - the public have finally grown tired of the lies, corruption and incompetence. One stat I read yesterday said if a General Election were held tomorrow, almost one hundred Tory MPs could expect to be out their seats quicker than my Dad at a Beatles tribute night (after they’ve asked him to leave). The Witterers and the Witless. It could be the end of Johnson. But guys, it actually could be. I know, I know, I KNOW.. for a while now we’ve dipped our toes in and out of the idea that he could be forced out. And for a while now, there’s been this cross-section of two tribes of Tory MPs. The Witterers & The Witless. The Witterers publicly support the PM, but privately brief that his days are numbered. The Witless make no distinction between their public and private personalities. This is your Jacob Rees-Moggs, your Nadine Dorries; If nothing else, at least they can say they’re not two-faced. They’ll tell you exactly what they ‘think’ whether it’s in front of the cameras or privately, 300 miles-away from their boss. But only because they lack the cognitive ability to either critically appraise him or to construct and maintain something as complicated as a lie. In this context, the Witterers operate somewhere between “Let’s wait and see how the May local elections go” and “there’s nobody better than Boris so, meh, wha’d’ya gonna do?” The Witless think they're on some 3D-Chess, Machiavellian shit. They vomit themselves on the morning sofas, the Sky News appearances, pinball’ing from “Look, we can’t act on Partygate until the investigation has concluded” to “Well, come on, that was ages ago, I think people have moved on”. They're walking talking irony-bombs. They think they're super smart, they think they're being slick but... well, y'know 😆 In their minds it's a stroke of political, strategic, Napoleonic genius. When you wanted to complain before, then you needed to wait. And when you waited? Well, things have moved on, it’s all in the past. Cynical, desperate, transparent. The two camps are stark. One is happy to keep Johnson in No10 no matter the damage to the Conservatives, to Politics more broadly and indeed - to their own credibility. The other accepts reality but can’t quite bring themselves to openly call for his resignation. Both are hilarious. The “Well, who else *is* there?” line is my favourite. A nod to the Conservative tradition of self-ownership. Coupled with an hilarious (if tacit) admission the rest of the party are even worse than the charmless, insulin-resistant Milkybar Kid currently leading them. “Well, we’d love to oust him,” conceded Barnaby Fairfax-Smythe III, privately to The Times. “But honestly, who else *is* there!? I mean, sure, he’s tanked trust in politicians, dragged down The Met, killed 200,000 people, buried us in Wallpaper scandals, misuse of public funds scandals, 2nd Jobs scandals, the Party-gate scandal, lied to the Queen, lied to Parliament, trashed the ministerial code, broken the laws he, himself, wrote and given Labour a nine point lead for the last six months - but honestly, who else do we have? We are ALL worse than that.” But at least they and Team-“let’s wait ’til May” are acquainted with reality. Perhaps there genuinely are no candidates any better than Johnson? Tories are famously cunty? Maybe it is best to wait for May 5th, if it proves a temperature check on the public’s approval of the PM? At least then they have a very public mandate for change. But the cynical “Wait for the investigation and then oh well it’s been too long now, I think we should all move on” lot are as delusional as they are a subgenre of comedy. Do they really think the voters they alienated in 2020 and 2021, off the back of, say, 2nd Jobs or Partygate, are going to come running back when they see *more* weird and manipulative behaviour like this? “Yeah, I was really angry when I couldn’t see my Dad on the ward and he ended up dying over a Facebook-live while thirty-seven Downing St staff were in a K-Hole for the Pendulum DJ set… I did feel that was a dark and arrogant abuse of the public’s trust. But *then* they tried to gaslight, manipulate and demonstrably lie their way out of trouble. And that’s when I thought, yep, actually - these guys get it.” It’s the political equivalent of saying “I find some of your religious views oppressive but your honour killing game is tight, bruuh! More Wine & Cheese?” Of course, selfishly, this is great for comedy fans like me. There are few things funnier in life than someone who thinks they’re waaaaay cleverer and more devious than they actually are. Perhaps by that logic, my own comedy career might not be over just yet? People like Mogg, Dorries, James Cleverly, Dominic Raab and Priti Patel conduct themselves in such a way it leaves you in no doubt they *think* they’re out-manoeuvring their adversaries. They *think* they’re blocking your Knight with a Rook and you’ve just lost your Queen. “Ah shit, that bloody genius Cleverly has done it again” they imagine you saying. “We TRY to outsmart him, we TRY, Sir Keir Starmer, but he and Patel… they’re just always two steps ahead!” It never dawns on them that eventually people tire of it. It never troubles their sociopathic sense of self-serving careerism that consistently trying to evade scrutiny, avoiding repercussions and trashing institutions may win you the battle on that day but eventually there's going to be a reckoning. They’re like an abusive husband who always gets his way. No negotiation. Constantly pushing his wife into doing whatever. His choice of restaurant. Going out with his friends. House chores or childcare that’s convenient for him; but who lacks the emotional intelligence to see that eventually she’ll take the fucking house and the kids. Eventually there’ll be… a correction. So whether you’re one of the Witless or a Witterer, really it doesn’t matter. The writing is on the wall. Or at least it seems to be. It really feels like we’re in Time’s Up territory. The polls are in Labour’s favour. There’s talk of a formal and informal Lib/Lab election pact to amplify it. More people think the Tories' last GE flagship policy, Brexit, was a mistake than ever before. There's a cost of living crisis to further put the boot in. And the Cabinet as-is (who were hired on the basis they would kiss the ring rather than any professional ability) lack the talent to change or improve anything anytime soon. The only thing that can scupper this now is if either the Left split the vote or if the Witless’s deviousness manages to outrun their stupidity.
