The week in satire Vol. #122

And what a week it was!

A week in which several prominent Tories put themselves forwards for the leadership position! A week in which several less-prominent Tories put themselves forwards for the leadership position! And a week in which basically every Tory horror imaginable announced their intention of becoming the PM!

But what else happened?

Let’s look back and see:

EU elections ‘prove us right’, claims everyone

by John Shafthauer

So Britain has had yet more elections. That’s good. Elections always go well for us. This one has proven especially good, as it’s proven people right on Brexit. Although which people got proven right depends on whom you speak to.

Splitting image

According to Brexiteers:

The Brexit Party is the biggest winner. Suck on that, metropolitan elite! This clearly proves people want Brexit. You know, if you ignore that they’re still way below a majority.

According to Remainers:

The overall vote share massively favours Remain! Or at least it does if you squint a bit, do the maths wrong, ignore the Tories, and pretend that Labour has a clear Remain position.

Bizarre that people saying the combined Remain vote share was higher than the combined Leave vote are not including the Tory result on the Leave side. If you do, as you obviously should, then Leave is clearly ahead pic.twitter.com/wKSfbVd411

— Alex Wickham (@alexwickham) May 27, 2019

According to THE 63% OF PEOPLE WHO DIDN’T BOTHER VOTING:

We told you we’re all fucking sick of it – stop making us vote for shit – it only makes things worse!

When asked to extrapolate what the future holds going off these results, one analyst said:

Fuck knows.

Another elaborated:

Something terrible, undoubtedly. According to recent polling, the only majority that currently exists is for ‘never having to hear about Brexit again’.

Time crisis

The promised Brexit might be undeliverable, but people who voted for it seemingly won’t be happy until that’s definitively proven.

Clearly, at this point, the only thing anyone could do to fix this mess is travel back in time and milkshake baby David Cameron.

James Cleverly ordered to change his surname by trading standards

by John Shafthauer

James Cleverly is well known on Twitter for saying things that draw his surname into question. Elsewhere, he’s basically unheard of. That’s changed now, as he’s announced a bid to become the next prime minister. As such, he’s drawn the attention of trading standards.

So… the housing association sold off the flat in 2010. Seb Corbyn bought it in 2016. Struggling to see the scandal here.

I’d be curious to see what the property portfolios of sitting Conservative MPs are like though… https://t.co/RajXW3oiyj

— Ash Sarkar (@AyoCaesar) February 17, 2019

Unfortunately this is the reality of some of my constituents. It's this out of touch #hostile cruelty of your government under #UniversalCredit and #Austerity that is ruining people's lives. Your patronising comments says a lot. #IDanielBlake #IDanielBlakeBBC2 #WeAreDanielBlake https://t.co/Vd852jLQQg

— Dawn Butler ✊🏾💙 (@DawnButlerBrent) January 5, 2019

James Idiotically

A spokesperson from trading standards said:

We probably should have got on to Mr Cleverly sooner, but we assumed his Twitter persona was a joke. How could one man be so consistently wrong about everything? How could one mouth fit so many feet?

Now that he’s running for PM, obviously we’ll have to take action. We can’t have politicians lying about what they’ll deliver. I mean – we do have that – but not this brazenly.

Trading standards offered some alternative names he could use. They included:

• James Stupidly.
• James Dastardly.
• James Tediously.
• James Wrongly.
• James Pig-Fucking-Headedly.
• James Against-All-Better-Judgemently.
• James Probably-Shouldn’t-Have-Botheredly.
• James Oh-God-Please-Make-Him-Stoppedly.
• Clive Haddock.

Clever and cleverer 

Despite always being wrong about everything, Mr Haddock has argued that shouldn’t stop him becoming the next Tory PM. As he pointed out:

Just look at my predecessors.

This is actually a good point. The only good point Mr Haddock has ever made, in fact. A fact which suggests the ‘Cleverly’ name may in fact have been cursed.

Holding politicians accountable if they lie ‘bad’, claim lying politicians

by John Shafthauer

Boris Johnson is due in court over claims that he lied during the EU referendum. If he’s found guilty and punished, it would be a big shock. Usually we just let politicians get away with spewing unfettered horseshit. As such, the development is concerning for all the politicians who see deceit as the fireman’s hose of politics.

Change of pace

One Tory MP said:

This is complete nonsense. So what – now I’ll have to figure out in advance if what I’m saying is true? Do you realise how much extra workload that’s going to give me? I’ll have to pay my researcher nephew to actually do some research. Currently he just funnels expenses back to my bank account, unless this is on the record, in which case he definitely does research.

Another added:

Obviously there’s an argument for politicians telling the truth, but moving the goal posts mid-game just really isn’t fair. Surely there should be a cut-off date? There’ll be chaos if not. Will we have to dig up Thatcher and get her in the dock? You really haven’t thought this through.

A further one complained:

THE TRUTH IS AN ANTI-BREXIT CONSPIRACY!

Liar, liar

A final Tory told us that there are no lies in politics, actually. At this point, we couldn’t help but notice that his pants had caught fire.

“No they haven’t,” he claimed, as the tweed slowly burned.

Rory Stewart blames his voting record on his opium habit

by John Shafthauer

PM hopeful Rory Stewart has some appeal. Or at least he does to the journos who hunger for Tony Blair 3.0, anyway. The reason he has this appeal is that he looks comparatively bland and blathers on about nothing – exactly the sort of shite the establishment laps up.

.@RoryStewartUK says ‘love’ is the keyword to healing divisions in the country. #bbcqt pic.twitter.com/ujBJe4xKCK

— BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) May 30, 2019

There is a problem, though – namely that his voting record doesn’t match up with his bland nothings. A fact which Stewart is now trying to excuse:

Rory Stewart has revealed he smoked opium in Iran as the Tory leadership contender embarked on the latest leg of his round-Britain tour https://t.co/UpxI1GwEqh

— Telegraph Politics (@TelePolitics) May 30, 2019

The poppyular vote

Speaking to one of the several thousand journalists he has on speed dial, Stewart explained:

Between 2010 and two weeks ago, I’ve been completely out of my mind on opium. So all the times I voted in favour of austerity or killing disabled people – that wasn’t me – it was the opium voting.

Stewart added:

Hopefully this revelation shows the kids that I’m down with them. Kids still smoke opium, right?

Easy mode

When asked if his alleged opium habit should disqualify him from office, Stewart said:

Things can only get better.

For some reason, this answer came across as adequate to the person interviewing him. This support is unlikely to do him any favours among the people actually voting, though – namely the Tory membership.

Cruelly, the media is giving Stewart the same sort of hope they gave Liz Kendall and Owen Smith – i.e. ‘false’.

Man who endorsed ‘Trump University’ endorses Boris Johnson

by John Shafthauer

Boris Johnson enjoys the support of some interesting characters. He’s recently won the backing of the man who promoted ‘Trump University’ – an establishment that was to education what Donald Trump is to presidenting.

Trump, Trump it up

President Trump is known for throwing his weight behind many infamous ventures. In the past he’s supported:

• Trump Titanic.
• Trump Asbestos.
• Trump Eldorado.

Speaking about the endorsement, Johnson said:

I think it’s fan-fibbling-tastic, actually. People will look at the Trump presidency and be assured that they’ll get more of the same from me.

Trump himself said:

Boris is going to make a great tsar – truly.

When it was explained that ‘Boris’ just had a somewhat Russian-sounding name, Trump added:

NO COLLUSION!

Barrel bottom

Of course, an endorsement from Trump doesn’t necessarily mean a candidate would be a disastrous PM. It does mean that 99.9% of the time, obviously – especially when a politician has a political record as woeful as Johnson’s.

In ordinary circumstances, the approval of such an unfavourable figure might have worked against him. Not in this instance, however, as the next PM of Great Britain will be picked by the handful of weirdoes who still pay Tory membership fees.

Donald Trump's endorsement of Boris Johnson is more significant than it looks. Yes he's just one xenophobic old guy with no idea what it's like to grow up poor in Britain. But remember to become PM Johnson only needs to convince a few thousand Tory party activists. https://t.co/VoClQR8qHw

— David Lammy (@DavidLammy) June 1, 2019

Featured and in-story images via The White House – Wikimedia / Chris McAndrew – Wikimedia / Flickr – Chatham House / Wikimedia – Chris McAndrew / pixabay / pixabay / Think London – Wikimedia / Kevin Dooley – Flickr