Issues

Both parties have made the wise decision to discard trivial issues like education, the economy, and employment in favour of a relentless focus on immigration. But while chickenshit Reform only wants to freeze non-essential immigration, Restore demands net-negative immigration, ie. sending them back. Which does your heart truly desire?

Image

Cloth-cap wearing Farage looks like an angry gamekeeper threatening to shoot children for trespassing, which makes him an immensely sympathetic figure any Briton will automatically identify with. But Lowe’s pinched, reddened features make him resemble a local squire who kills a man drink-driving and gets off on a technicality. A tough choice.

Personality

We all know Nigel, the beer-drinking smoking thin-skinned man of the people who starts shouting ‘Boring!’ if he doesn’t like the topic of conversation. But Rupert? The chairman who took Southampton into administration who’d dismiss you from 20 years employment without notice if he walked past and deemed you to be ‘lounging’? Also attractive.

Being an outsider

Both men are mavericks and political outsiders as only wealthy, privately-educated white men with long careers in the City of London can be. But while Farage is now so much a part of the establishment it seems odd when he’s not on Question Time, Rupert is such a rebel he kicked himself out of Reform to found his own party where he is king. Sexy.

Bigotedness of local candidate

You’re not voting for the leader. You’re voting for either Reform’s plumber Robert Kenyon, because everyone finds plumbers trustworthy and reliable and unlikely to double the price without warning, or Restore’s Rebecca Shepherd who is a woman and backed by Dragons’s Den heartthrob Duncan Bannatyne. On second thoughts, vote for the leader.

Verdict

Open bigotry, promising to reverse time to an imagined AI 1950s, a track record of broken promises; how can you choose? But in your deepest soul, you know Reform have been outclassed. Now you just have to remember which is which in the voting booth. If only their names weren’t so similar, and you not much of a reader!

Win Makerfield

To earn the right to Downing Street, the King in the North Across the Water must triumph in a former safe seat where Reform lead. Can he take a constituency populated by 28 per cent ordinary working folk and 72 per cent Westminster journalists doing vox pops?

Recover the fabled Jewel of Working-Class Support

Deep Burnham must dive, deep into a flooded mine where he will do battle with the Hydra of Flattened Vowels, outrun the Agenda of News and find the long-lost scarlet Jewel. Only if it glows at his touch will we know he is the One who Raise the Colours May Consider.

Romance the home secretary

Always, since time immemorial of 2018, Britain must have a brown home secretary for they are the worse racists. Burnham must wine, dine and win the love of the current incumbent for otherwise the sin of Open Borders dwells within his heart.

Spend an hour with Sensei Corbyn

A full hour must Burnham spend with the Old One, the Guru, the Collective Leader-Without-Leadership of Your Party and withstand the lectures on Palestine, Cuba, and injustices hitherto unknown. If he can smile and nod and patronise, he passes.

Survive the Newsprint Beasting

Any Labour prime minister will face six hostile headlines daily in major newspapers, because that is Normal and How Things Must Be. Burnham must go through an accelerated process where he faces 186,000 in a minute then act like he is not bothered.

Raise Brexit from the dead

To show he deserves to lead the Separatist Nations, Burnham must single-handedly raise the corpse of Brexit from the unhallowed ground it lies in then slay it to show he can keep it in a permanent half-life, never successful, never condemned, only ruling eternally.

Win over Labour members

Finally, when all other trials are complete Burnham must win the favour of a majority of Labour members. Many of whom are aged 85 and demanding a return to the Foot Manifesto of 1983 plus full union membership for all professions. Good luck, Andy.

Labour MPs will be gathered in the Strangers’ Bar, gossiping and awaiting candidates, when they become aware of a distant squealing noise and a woman’s voice shouting ‘Huzzah!’ and ‘On, porker!’

The double doors will burst open to reveal Rayner, wearing an emerald green trouser suit over a polished metal breastplate, seated astride Wes Streeting and guiding him with a leash through his septum ring.

Rayner will say: “I hereby announce that I, Angela Rayner, am to run to become Labour leader and prime minister thereafter!” before tugging on the leash to elicit a particularly emphatic squeal.

To questions of ‘Is that Wes?’ she will reply: “Wes no more, for he has been reborn as my hog steed! Grunt for your mistress, swine! Grunt your assent! Grunt full confidence in my leadership!”

Following prolonged grunting Rayner will then slap her mount’s flank, bid him turn and gallop away, leaving only incomprehension and bafflement as to who to vote for now in her wake.

Then Calvin Bailey, member for Leyton and Wanstead, will ask: “Can anyone else smell pigshit?”

The ‘oversight’ of failing to pay enough council tax has persuaded sceptical Britons that the Green leader is capable of the dodgy financial dealings favoured by other senior politicians.

Floating voter Martin Bishop said: “I wasn’t impressed by all his virtue-signalling and wanting to save the environment. But he’s won me right over by botching his personal finances.

“Cooking the books is part of the PM’s job description. Starmer had his freebies, Boris was up to all manner of fiddles. Polanski might not be embroiled in a Panama Papers-level scandal yet, but by not paying tax on his houseboat he’s proved he’s got potential.”

Nikki Hollis of Brighton said: “The left has long been calling for a crooked Farage figure to call their own, and now they’ve got one. Zack’s even got The Sun onside with his history of boob hypnotism. Number 10’s as good as his.

“That’s unless he messes things up before the next election by outlining a detailed, fully-costed economic plan that benefits those in need. If there’s one thing the public hates, it’s shit like that.”

Polanski said: “I’d like to reassure everyone that I won’t be taking steps to pay back any outstanding council tax. And if any crypto billionaires want to make a donation, I can launder it through a dodgy nail bar I own.”

The amendment, written in pen by the prime minister, lists Jess Phillips, Miatta Fahnbulleh, Alex Davies-Jones and Zubir Ahmed as ‘mewling pukes who were absolutely right to resign, as the further they are from government the better’.

King Charles III, after introducing more than 35 bills and draft bills on areas as varied as the NHS, immigration, police reform and nationalising British Steel, will then be required to decry the current health secretary as ‘a stone-ass cry-baby loser’.

He will continue: “And there are those other bitches, who are too many and too boring to list, who have called for me to step down. I note many of them are Welsh or Scottish, which is its own punishment.

“Many of the rest are former followers of Corbyn, yet have remained in Labour rather than join the – I apologise for the language – clusterf**k of Your Party, proving my leadership beats that mess. They may remain anonymous. It is all they deserve.”

King Charles added: “May I add I have no personal wish to introduce a new prime minister at this stage in my reign, given what happened when Liz Truss met my mother.”

Battle-scarred champion Starmer called hopeful Wes Streeting to step into his blood-strewn thunderdome while chewing the flesh of Olly Robbins from a femur and spitting the gristly bits into a jewelled cup.

Under the glow of flaming torches, barbarian conqueror Starmer said: “Is this the best warrior those massed against could muster? A baby-faced dweeb who looks like he’s always forgotten his homework? Mediocre.

“What will it be, Streeting of the Greater London wastes? Will you face the steel of my battle axe with the trident or the short sword? Or are you foolish enough to challenge me to bare-fisted one-on-one combat? Either way, your miserable fate is sealed.

“No, fighting you to the death would be a waste of my terrifying strength. Begone, and tell the people that Starmer the Mighty, Once and Future Prime Minister, former Director of Public Prosecutions, is as merciful as he is powerful.

“Your blood is not worthy of being spilled. Though your nuts shall receive a kick that would shatter worlds.”

Streeting said: “I’ll chalk that up as a win. I think I spooked him into submission by how stoically I wet myself and ran away.”

Ellie Shaw, teacher 

“Is Bridget Phillipson a candidate? The one who slagged off Bob Vylan and hasn’t done anything else of note? She might be standing? Oh my God that’s fantastic news! I’m going to call my mum!”

Tom Logan, delivery driver

“Don’t most people own a Wes Streeting body pillow? I’ve been a stan ever since I first saw him on Question Time in 2017 and every night I go to sleep cuddled up to his stout little body and round, shiny face. God, I hope he betrays me one day.”

Mary Fisher, illustrator

“I feel Ed Miliband has proved himself by hovering on the fringes of power for decades while achieving nothing. These days he looks as if he’s just stepped out of a crypt, but I’d definitely consider voting for him if the polling station was in my living room.”

Lauren Hewitt, student

“Speaking as a genuine young person, I believe Angela Rayner is incredibly cool, or ‘rizz’ in our language. She’s tried DJing and she drinks alcohol, both of which ‘slap’. Plus her ‘fit’, or clothing, looks as if it’s chosen to be fashionable without considering what it looks like. That’s mad tough.”

Josh Hudson, paramedic

“Shabana Mahmood’s been doing a fantastic job of copying Reform so I hope she wins, because I love racist policies while still voting for a nominally left-wing party. Makes my dick hard.”

Donna Sheridan, solicitor

“Yesterday as I was going to work my neighbour Iain rushed out. ‘Have you heard?’ he said, ‘Lucy Powell might stand for leader!’ I howled with excitement, and soon the street was thronged with people chanting ‘LU-CY! LU-CY! LU-CY!’. That’s how much we love her, and if she doesn’t win we’ll start a terrorist campaign.”

James Bates, electrician

“It’s got to be Rachel Reeves for me, with her magnetic personality and incredible good looks. I know you shouldn’t vote for someone just because you fancy them, but face it, Rachel has the lad vote sewn up.”

Martin Bishop, delivery driver

“I like Andy Burnham as he seems normal, competent and committed to improving things. So naturally they’ll make sure he’s excluded and I can f**k off.”

MP Emma Bradford, who accepted the position as part of her long-term plan to unseat the prime minister, has joined the junior minister for Storming Out Angrily and the minister for Self-Important Political Gestures in leaving the front bench.

She said: “The council election results, as well as whatever the thing is with Mandelson, have left me with no option but to tender my resignation.

“The cabinet is now missing several key positions including the under-minister for Pompously Walking Out On Principle, as well as multiple ministerial aides who may only have popped to Tesco Metro. Starmer’s position is untenable.

“If he does not announce his resignation, the under-secretary for One Last Resignation Just In Time For The Six O’Clock News may go. Just a rumour, but media should check their email at 5.30pm.

“Either that or I’ll take my old job back before the consultancies paying me £30k a month notice I’ve gone.”

Wayne Hayes of Watford is in critical condition after newspaper headlines caused him to imagine a Britain where a straight-talking working class Northern woman was installed in Downing Street where once giants like May, Truss and Johnson trod.

Paramedic Lauren Hewitt said: “For those whose bodies are habituated to the columns of Richard Littlejohn, this causes severe toxic shock.

“His middle-aged system can barely tolerate the idea of Starmer or Burnham being in power. A mouthy redhead with a regional twang was always going to be too much for his delicate constitution. He’s haemorrhaged all his organs at once and shat himself.

“The Mail knows the danger running images of Rayner poses to their readership, yet they irresponsibly do so anyway. At least the Daily Star has the moral leadership to put on devil horns and a witches’ nose to soften the anaphylactic shock.

“We’ve stabilised his condition with an IV of Sarah Vine columns, but there’s still no saying whether he’ll pull through. Our scans show massive irreversible brain damage, but that’s consistent with being a Mail reader.”

Wife Yvonne said: “If you think this experience will make Wayne grateful for the NHS, you don’t know him at all.”

Nathan Muir, Hitchin

“He can survive hearings about Mandelson vettings, sure, but can he survive six years in a Mongolian jail, locked up with the dregs of the Russian Mafia, fighting for every scrap of food, living on only his wits and the British reputation as peerless catamites? Because if he can then he deserves to stay the full term as prime minister, fair play.”

Norman Steele, Hythe

“Bollocks to surviving council elections. I’ll only respect him if he survives a pit full of starving wolves, crosses a swamp of alligators, then fights his way out of a soft play centre stocked with leopards, cobras and crazed honey badgers. And if being mugged turns liberals to conservatives, all that should make him further right than Tommy Robinson.”

Jo Kramer, Warwick

“We keep hearing how he’s under pressure, To prove it doesn’t bother him, he should journey to the bottom of the Marianas Trench in a submersible he’s constructed himself, then be catapulted directly into space. Then and only then will he have the necessary authority to propose limited trade alignment with the EU.”

Helen Archer, East Grinstead

“See, this is why we traditionally temper our politicians in the seething Darwinian cauldron of Eton. Because if they can get through five years of insane snobbery, indiscriminate buggery, beatings on the fives court and total parental indifference, politics is nothing.”

Julian Cook, Chelsea

“I’m seeing a lot of headlines about the hantavirus. So that, and then how about he continues to do his job in a Hazmat suit while his body is used as an incubator for a series of terrible diseases, eventually expiring at the dispatch box? While Streeting, Rayner and the rest do their very best to look sad.”

Bill McKay, Warrington

“Global thermonuclear war. The great thing is we don’t have to go to any trouble because Trump’s going to China to meet Xi this week to set it off. If he can clamber to the irradiated surface and deliver a speech about getting the tough choices right as the last man on earth, he’s earned it. Though we all know in that situation it’ll be Farage.”

Keir Starmer has looked at council election results and a likely wipeout for Labour in Scotland and Wales and seen in them the mirror of his own detestation.

He said: “You hate me just as much as I hate you, then. Honestly that’s comforting to know. I was beginning to feel like I was a bad person.

“I can admit now I didn’t think much of you back in 2024, given you’re the same twats that voted Brexit and gave Boris Johnson a majority. But I tried to approach things with an open mind. Maybe you had something to offer. What other choice was there?

“But not even two years in, I can confirm that my opinion of you has absolutely plummeted. I’m in here trying to fix stuff while Trump throws shit about like a demented orang-utan and you’re embracing any lying populist who promises you money.

“My approval’s at negative 70? That’d be a step up for you pricks. I’m only carrying on now out of spite. You think you deserve a better leader? I think deserve a better electorate. But we’re f**king stuck with each other, aren’t we?

“I hope that hurts you as much as it does me. Now piss off and enjoy your shitty little right-wing councils. I’ve got a knobhead country to run.”

Make housing white-only

The bedrock of Reform’s faith, equivalent to the resurrection of Christ in their theology, is that non-white households jump the housing queue. They will demand an immediate stop to this and, it never having been the case, will get one. Emboldened, they’ll demand all housing is white-only and learn this is ‘against the law’. So laws are wrong, they muse.

Ban the brown bin

Councils use brown bins for garden waste. For reasons they don’t need to specify, Reform are against this. But the Greens are their enemy, so we can’t have green bins either. White bins? What an insult to the proud Aryan soul to be the same colour as a bin. Purple bins? Too expensive. Official policy becomes ‘fly-tip your garden waste, it’s all the environment’.

Commissioning racist roundabouts

The key duty of a local council is to place unattractive artworks on roundabouts on ring roads. Under Reform, these artworks will depict key moments in white civilisation: the Vikings burning the monasteries, the release of the first On The Buses film in 1971, and the result of the 2016 Brexit referendum.

Race-based filter cycle lanes

Against cycle lanes on the principle that car ownership should be mandatory, cunning Reform councils will announce segregation gates funnelling any cyclist who cannot prove residence going back six generations directly into heavy traffic. But cyclists, as ever, will disregard any rules they find inconvenient and the death toll will be disappointing.

A flag on every lamppost

Under Reform, flags on lampposts won’t just indicate this is an area where a team of shaven-headed men have access to a van and a ladder and are using them to lower house prices. They’ll be mandatory. Which changes them from an act of resistance to yet more pointless bullshit the council’s wasting money on instead of fixing potholes.

Fixing potholes from the inside

Unable to find the budget to fix potholes despite firing the council’s sole diversity officer, your Reform council will reason that if, as Hitler believed, the earth is hollow, then all they need is a team to travel to its interior and push the potholes back out from the other side. A 16-strong team will be dispatched to the Antarctic to do so. They will die there, but whitely.

Yeah, the latest thing is me pretending to be a Red Cross spokesman years ago when I wasn’t. Obviously the press are out to get me, but it’s still pretty weird. Why would you do that? It’s not exactly Catch Me If You Can, but if anything the lack of ambition makes it worse.

So my message to new councillors winning seats today is this: for f**k’s sake don’t copy me in any way. And a good starting point for that is not claiming hypnotherapy can give you bigger tits. 

That was a stitch-up by The Sun but it’s still a totally stupid thing to go along with, so avoid anything like that. Don’t claim voting Green gives you a bigger penis. Or that you’ll collect the wheelie bins with mind powers. Or you’ve got the ability to rearrange matter like Doctor Manhattan out of Watchmen. Because that would be embarrassing bollocks, yes?

I’d also ask councillors not to change parties like I did. I used to be a Lib Dem, but I’m quite ambitious so I didn’t want my political career to be permanently stuck in the toilet like Ed Davey. So please don’t all join other parties, as that kind of buggers up today’s incredible gains.

We’ve been over antisemitism (bad, remember?) and it I’d also appreciate it if councillors don’t speak their brains over violent incidents involving the police because I looked like a dick when I did that. Don’t say ‘They should have knocked him out with a tranquiliser dart!’ or whatever naive liberal thought pops into your head. Say something about potholes instead.

Finally, I’d ask our new councils to avoid batshit Green fringe policies, which I know some of you are into. If you want to announce you’re going to charge local kebab shops with murder, at least give it a year or two before you make twats of yourselves. I wouldn’t.

A pulse

To vote in elections in Britain the only real qualification you need is not being dead. To make sure you are fully competent to participate in democracy, gently apply pressure to your wrist with your index and middle finger. If you can feel a faint pulse with at least 18 years of experience of wearily pumping blood through your body, congratulations, you can cast your essentially irrelevant vote.

Your ill-informed opinions

It’s important you don’t leave your unfounded hunches at home with your photo ID. The last thing you want is to be standing in the polling booth with a strong grasp of local issues and parties’ policies. This will cause you to dither, so with lots of people waiting it’s best if you let your half-baked suspicions about immigrants or Zack Polanski tell you what to do. Making an ill-informed knee-jerk decision is fine, it’s only vital services in vast swathes of the country at stake. No biggie.

Clothes

On a practical note, make sure you own at least one set of clothes and put them on before stepping outside to vote. Sadly it’s one of the many gatekeeping hurdles the nanny state has imposed. If the cost of living crisis means you can’t afford clothes, fashion rudimentary garments from leaves and bits of cardboard. Perhaps do this anyway – the volunteers at the polling station will probably rush you through quickly, avoiding any boring queuing.

Deep loathing of one party in particular

Under no circumstances read each candidate’s manifesto and carefully form your own opinion on who is best suited for power, or at least organising wheelie bin collections. Votes are traditionally cast in opposition to the party that you despise, with Reform UK and the Greens being the popular choices in this election. Who cares if you don’t particularly agree with what they stand for; do the right thing and allow yourself to be guided by blind hate.

Dog treats

Exercising your hard-won right to vote is a sideshow to the main event of election day: taking photos of cute dogs outside polling stations. It’s unfair to expect the canine guardians of democracy to pose for free though, so be sure to sling a couple of bone-shaped biscuits their way. Once that vital duty is completed, you can cursorily vote for some bellend who’ll probably get booted off the council in a month for watching porn in meetings.

The £5m personal gift, which Farage has not declared because he received it while not an MP and is spending on ‘security’, is the first and only event in the Reform leader’s life which does not merit extensive press coverage.

Media insider Norman Steele said: “This isn’t like when he was debanked, which invented the word and demanded a fortnight of headlines. This is just a £5 million gift from a pal.

“The papers dearly wish they could get a story out of it but there’s no public interest, not like their absolute rapt fascination with the Mandelson vetting scandal. It’s a mere cash injection referred to the parliamentary standards commissioner. Yawn.

“How would you spin an article out of that, without some wild claim that his influence has been in some way bought? Which nobody would believe. After all, it’s only £5 million.

“You can tell it’s no big deal because Farage hasn’t popped up to talk about it. He loves to hog the airwaves, so if even Nigel is ducking the limelight it’s as boring a Westminster bubble story as his juvenile racism.

“This isn’t Keir Starmer being bought a pair of glasses or Angela Rayner inadvertently dodging capital gains tax or anything juicy like that. A friend helping a friend? That’s not news unless you’re bitter and cynical which the British press has never been.”

Farage said: “Everyone gets multi-million pound donations all the time, you might as well report on me breathing in and out. Anyway, cameras at the ready, I’m about to drink a pint.”

Does my prospective councillor advocate for: 

A) The abolition of all money to be replaced with a local bartering market, with value decided by commune leaders
B) The return to the serfdom standard, because people had more connection with the land when they were owned by it

My prospective councillor has a deep and abiding hatred of a foreign country. Is it: 

A) Israel
B) All the Muslim ones except Dubai, where he lived until March

In contrast, their position on Russia is: 

A) We should make peace over Ukraine and normalise relations with them so we can focus on the real enemy: America
B) We should make peace over Ukraine and normalise relations with them so we can focus on the real enemy: Europe

My prospective councillor believes the ideal woman is: 

A) Greta Thunberg
B) Samantha Fox until he discovered she was gay and switched to Lucy Pinder

My prospective councillor is a powerful advocate for the legalisation of: 

A) All illegal substances without exception, in the belief it will vastly reduce harm of the impoverished
B) All automatic weapons without exception, in the belief it will vastly increase harm of the impoverished

What is my prospective councillor’s view on immigration, which as a member of a county council they will have no influence over whatsoever? 

A) Strongly for
B) Strongly, vehemently, forehead-vein-poppingly against

How long will my prospective councillor last in the job when they discover they will never create their planned utopia because it’s mainly budgets and bins? 

A) About three months
B) About three months

ANSWERS

Mostly As: Your prospective local councillor is a Green looney! Check out their social media to discover they advocated for the trial and public execution of JK Rowling as recently as last month.

Mostly Bs: Your prospective local councillor is a Reform looney! Check out their social media to discover they advocated for the trial and public execution of Gary Lineker as recently as last month.

The rich are very clever

The very wealthy are not content, like mere wage-earning sheep, to pay whatever tax is levied upon them. They will involve themselves in tax-avoidance schemes – and clever ones, not the ones used by footballers – and end up paying far less as a result. A wise nation would not force them into such painful duplicity.

Taxation costs money

To even assess the value of our homes, with all their period features and stables converted into pottery studios at the lady of the house’s passing whim, costs the government money. It also demoralises those inspecting, HM Revenue and ultimately the whole government. You’re happier not knowing of your inferiority, trust us.

It destabilises the property market

Seems ridiculous, doesn’t it? That your horrible little Redditch new build could be affected by our £6m London penthouses? But it means we don’t sell, and those below us cannot buy, and so on until you get no viewings on your grubby terrace and have to die there. And it’s all because of that dreadful mansion tax.

Our philanthropic urges are rebuffed

The lower orders, popping a pound into a box for the brief thrill of goodwill, have no conception of how generously we give. There is barely a kindly act in the country that is not dependent on our largesse. If that is withdrawn because you have offended us? Britain will become a blasted ruin of misery which you brought on yourselves.

You feel the shame

Deep down, you know this is not the way it was meant to be. The bottom strata of society demanding money from the top? It is an inversion of the natural order, the economy knows that and it will compensate by charging you more for your peccadillos, like beer and biscuits. Ask not why. Simply abolish this dreadful tax and rejoice.

The party has confirmed that disastrous results in the local elections will mean challenges to Keir Starmer and all manner of bullshit designed to get Andy Burnham into office, and they can avoid all that with just a few Labour councillors.

Labour strategist Julian Cook said: “We’re not asking for a win. But if we hang onto about half, the country can avoid a whole lot of overexcited bollocks.

“We’d love to win based on bold ideas, but the inertia of the British public is far more reliable. We’re not promising change or unity. We’re offering the radical alternative of nothing particularly dramatic happening for a bit.

“Obviously you hate Starmer. That’s a given. But wouldn’t you prefer to kick him out in a general election rather than see Wes Streeting’s tosspot face on your telly for weeks? Do you honestly want to be forced to weigh the pros and cons of Angela Rayner?

“We are not asking anyone to be enthusiastic about our values or vision. We’re asking for the bare minimum level of engagement to prevent the country being dominated by six Labour WhatsApp groups for weeks on end.

“A vote for Labour is a vote for a quiet life. Doesn’t that sound lovely?”

Voter James Bates said: “I’m making my X for the Lib Dems. They could win every seat and the media would say the real story was Reform.”