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Why I'm the perfect choice to host Strictly, by Gregg Wallace

TESS and Claud leaving Strictly doesn’t mean the show has to end – it can easily continue if a beloved household name like me takes over. Here’s why I’m the obvious choice.

My schedule’s clear

Presenting a flagship show like Strictly Come Dancing requires total commitment. Luckily for the BBC my calendar is completely empty, except for a few meetings with my agent which wrap up in a couple of minutes these days anyway. You know where to find me when you’re ready, Auntie Beeb, locked in my bedroom playing Total War Saga and ignoring my kids.

The public already knows me

A well-known face is the perfect way to ease the departure of Tess and Claud. Viewers will be so excited to see me – the man they all know and love from that funny buttery biscuit base YouTube video – that they’ll quickly forget how sad they were about the changing of the guard. I’ll need a straight co-host to balance out my off-the-wall energy though. How about Huw Edwards?

A lack of relevant skills doesn’t stop me

I successfully hosted Masterchef for 20 years despite not being a professional cook. The camera simply couldn’t resist my troubling gurning and ability to make contestants feel ill at ease. I could have two left feet for all I know, but my loveable working-class charisma will be enough to carry Strictly. Anyone who disagrees is a stuck-up woman of a certain age who can go f**k themselves.

I’m no stranger to scandals

Anyone who presents Strictly Come Dancing has to be able to weather a scandal. My time on Masterchef was the perfect training ground for bad PR, because my former co-host John Torode was sacked over some off-colour jokes. As everyone knows I resigned at the same time in solidarity, which proves how honest and trustworthy I am for the Strictly gig.

It would be good for representation

The BBC loves box-ticking when it comes to its presenters, but they’re lagging behind when it comes to autistic hosts. Not hiring me would look like discrimination, so it’s in the broadcaster’s interest to give me a shot. It’s also the perfect excuse for when I inevitably end up shagging one of the dancers. It wasn’t me, officer, it was the autism.

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Oh for f**k's sake, we would never have hyped a Caerphilly by-election if Reform weren't going to win it

ARE you taking the f**king piss, Wales? You think we’d have bothered covering a by-election in bloody Caerphilly if Reform weren’t going to win?

It’s not even to proper Parliament. It’s the Senedd, which nobody east of Wrexham gives even a ghost of a shit about. But nonetheless, because it was a nailed-on Reform win and a harbinger of their landslide election victory to come, we sent our journalists.

We did grubby vox pops with your hideously-accented natives. We pretended to care about your pathetic local issues, like ‘closing a library’. We said you were a bellwether for the whole of Wales, not to mention the UK. Then you do this?

What are we meant to do with a f**king Plaid Cymru win? Start claiming they’re the inevitable winners of the next election? A bunch of stumpy-legged daffodil-frotters? Nobody would believe that. They’ve only got four MPs, compared to Reform’s mighty five.

Shamefully, we’ve had to fall back on what a humiliation it is for Labour. It’s temporary, while we work out how to fit this into the narrative of Reform’s unstoppable rise to power, but it’s embarrassing.

There are even whispers this was our fault. That by confidently predicting a Reform victory we somehow mobilised the youth against them, when we know Gen Z is into racism and fascism because we’ve been saying it all year.

How do you think you’ve made Nigel feel? He was there, his Mercedes idling in a lay-by outside Machen, waiting for his victory. You’ve let him down. You’ve let us all down.

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