It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times. On the one hand, inflatable reservist Mark Francois MP has previously promised that we will leave the EU on 31 October, or “this country will explode”. On the other hand, Devon-based extremist Katie Hopkins has previously tweeted that we will leave the EU on 31 October, or “I will drink a pot of tea naked in the Apprentice losers cafe with Farage’s face on each nipple.”
We will not be leaving the EU on 31 October.
According to some reports, Brexit coins minted with the 31 October date “could be worth up to £800”. So could €1 coins, soon enough. Still, the cabinet hoarding the misprinted Brexit coins to pay for their skiing holidays would be an irony we could all get behind.
If you’re keeping track of the accounts, Boris Johnson has just blown £100m on an ad campaign insisting the UK was leaving on 31 October, even though the chances of this were always so slim they amounted to Conservative party election positioning. Given that seven months ago the prime minister was describing £60m spent on the historical sex abuse inquiry as money “spaffed up a wall”, it’s important that you get his Brexit ads in perspective. They were complete bollocks, and at the same time almost twice as valued as investigating mass institutionalised child rape. It’s a very exciting branding space for the Tories to be in.
Strange to think that, in another timeline, we would all currently be pooling our corned beef and lightbulbs in anticipation of Theresa May’s planned Festival of Brexit. Instead, we’re waiting to see whether the French will give us an election. Yesterday, Boris Johnson told MPs in the Commons tea room that he had asked the French to block the Brexit extension request. In a documentary filmed when he was foreign secretary, Johnson told the cameras that the French were “turds”. So it will be interesting to see which version of our friends and partners turns up. What’s the French for, “You want picking up in the morning, pal?”
The prime minister wants a Christmas election, but at present that old Scrooge Jeremy Corbyn won’t give him one. Despite having a deal that parliament merely wished to properly scrutinise, we are told that no-deal plans are being stepped up by Michael Gove (who frequently appears to have been visited by three spirits). “We are triggering Operation Yellowhammer,” he announced on Sunday. You’re triggering us all, dear.
And what if they can’t get an election? Then, like a lot of other comedy shows, the Conservative government has decided to have a strike episode. South Park did one once, where the nation of Canada goes on strike because it feels disrespected by the world.
As for how the Tory version will play out, instinct suggests you should put your money on “for mirthless laughs”. We’ll have no choice but to watch Conservative ministers presenting themselves as victims of The Man, which is a bit like Peter Sutcliffe presenting himself as a victim of the Yorkshire Ripper. Consequently, they’ll be forced to band together and take industrial action to protect their way of life. Listen, they just want their dignity. They know that when these jobs go there’ll be nothing else, bar retraining as an arms lobbyist or non-executive director of Goldman Sachs.
Sadly, we know from bitter experience the privations of a winter strike for those involved. The Conservatives wisely outlawed sympathy actions in the past, so they won’t face having to go through it without essential auxiliary services such as unwanted child collection and Ocado. But do begin putting aside your spare pennies to buy the young Rees-Moggs footwear, while their da makes soaring speeches behind an SW1 brazier. “My father went down the money pit, I went down the money pit, and, so help me, my son will have a money pit to go down.”
Except not. This week, Jacob could be found in the House of Commons, explaining why the withdrawal agreement bill that the government actually had a majority for was suddenly nowhere to be seen, by adapting the famous poem from the Scarlet Pimpernel. “The answer lies with Sir Percy Blakeney,” he honked of that novel’s hero. “They seek it here, they seek it there, those parliamentarians seek it everywhere. Is it in heaven, or is it in hell? That damned elusive Brexit bill!” Oh dear. Of course, much to the chagrin of their silly 50-year-old boy, the hugely bourgeois Rees-Moggs would have been entirely safe during the French Revolution. The voluminously suited Jacob’s chief exposure to Sir Percy Blakeney would have run along the lines of the latter’s remark to the ghastly government official Chauvelin: “Sink me! Your tailors have betrayed you. T’would serve you better to send them to Madame Guillotine.” I suppose it’s nice to see Jacob disporting himself with the confidence of a man yet to realise Dominic Cummings is building an oubliette for him to spend any election in.
And so to that gilet-clad Loki. This week we’ve had so many definitive and yet contradictory anonymous No 10 rants about what fiendish stratagem is next. Yet here we are, in the same place. The October Surprise is that there is no surprise. There are mayflies that survive longer than Cummings’ briefings, which now have a four-hour lifespan yet somehow always achieve their destiny. They are an essential component of a media ecosystem that kind of knows that not signing a mandated letter means jack shit in legal terms, but will write it anyway because their news editor’s Mr Right Now and needs the appearance of fresh meat. Hey – it’s all retail. Isn’t it?
With both main party leaders taken up with hourly contradiction, their extravagantly gifted junior troops have been on hand to desecrate the airwaves. Informed by Kay Burley that the polls said Labour wouldn’t win, shadow lord chancellor Richard Burgon retorted: “The polls said we wouldn’t win last time.” Burley: “You didn’t.”
Reposting this exchange, Tory minister Johnny Mercer failed to appreciate his precise comic status as the Tory Burgon. “I sometimes get teased for being thick because I spurned university to join up and serve when I was 19,” Mercer sensationally revealed. “Then I see what a Cambridge degree and career in politics does for this guy and so many others of my colleagues, and think I got it about right.” If you say so yourself. I do enjoy Johnny’s tireless attempts to disguise his raging self-regard as affable humility. His entire output reads like one of those guys who replies to the pictures porn stars tweet: “Mornin darlin! All the better for seeing u! Think u posted that one just for me!!!!!”
All in all, another vintage week in the national journey. We remain in the wandering hands of a government that doesn’t want 16- and 17-year-olds to vote because they aren’t mature enough, but will go on strike if it can’t get its election exactly when it wants it. Meanwhile, 16- and 17- year olds are having to bunk off their childhoods to draw the attention of infantilised adults to the looming risk of ecological and social collapse.
One month ago, members of Boris Johnson’s government were lining up to tell teenagers that missing one day of school was unacceptable and wrong. Presumably we’ll now hear from those same ministers how missing weeks of your six-figure-salary job running the country is right and heroic. What a time to be existing, when the best escape route feels like giving Xboxes to politicians, and waiting for the nation’s children to grow up.