Truss or Mordaunt? How to pretend it f**king matters

WILL bobblehead Liz Truss or Blue Peter presenter Penny Mordaunt make it to the final two today? Here’s how to pretend you give a shit.

Convince yourself they’re different

When you’re dealing with a pair of nutters from the extreme right of the Tory party, it’s polite to pretend they’re different. Invent little contrasts between them, like Penny was a negligent trade minister as opposed to Truss being an ineffectual foreign minister, and try and work yourself up into caring.

Focus on their backgrounds

While Mordaunt did philosophy at Reading, Truss did philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford. Put to the back of your mind what lazy twats all the philosophy students you knew were and imagine them as wise philosopher-kings like Marcus Aurelius, who certainly would have been elected by Tory members.

Consider their policies

Truss’s policies are vague: cutting taxes, pleasing everyone and being as popular as Thatcher at her height. Magician’s assistant Penny is keeping her policies in a black box with stars painted on to unveil at the final moment. Essentially we have no clue what will happen if either takes charge, but we’re expected to have a dog in the fight regardless.

Be pleased that they’re women

Delude yourself that this is a great step forward for womankind, forgetting that we’ve already had two female prime ministers with terrible results. Act like it makes Britain a forward, progressive country, even though that’s only in contrast with America because Europe’s always electing women and some of them are even quite good.

Refuse to acknowledge your powerlessness

Conservative members decide who’s the next prime minister. Unless you’re one of them – an ignominy up there with subscribing to porn sites – then this is nothing to do with you. Ignore that, pay close attention to the race, watch leadership debates and never accept that you’ve as much say in it as who becomes president of Liberia.

Deny that Rishi will win

Polling shows that either Truss or Mordaunt could beat Rishi, so believe it. Treat the front-runner, who has all the money and support, who kicked off this whole contest at his whim, and who has all the experience and inside knowledge, as an irrelevance. That way it’ll be a thrilling surprise in September when he’s prime minister.

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What the f**k were your neighbours up to in yesterday's insane heat?

THE UK was apparently hotter than 99 per cent of the earth this week. Fact. So what abnormal behaviour did your weird neighbours get up to during the heatwave?

Being mad dogs

While you were hiding indoors with a fan blasting directly into your face, the teenagers from next door were lying in the midday sun like mad dogs. No hat, no cream, just blind determination to resemble Love Island simpletons. They’ve survived, but with an interesting two-tone purple and white look, like those old strawberry and cream sweets.

Keeping strange hours

At 2am you were woken by the rattle of wheelie-bin on gravel and realised that Derek from next door was taking his bins out. Avoiding the heat had driven him nocturnal like your old pet hamster, and now you fear a car wash at dawn or mowing the lawn at 4am. Or perhaps he always did this, it’s just you’ve never had the windows open wide enough to hear it. 

Stripping off 

Was Ellie from Number 11 aware that everyone on this side of the street could see her watering her geraniums in the near-nude? That wasn’t a bikini, it was her saggy underwear, and you’re feeling slightly traumatised. Thank goodness you don’t know her well enough to look her in the eye or you wouldn’t ever be not able to again. 

Acting normal

While you were busy refreshing your weather app and taking the opportunity to eat a whole multipack of mini Magnums, Simon from Number 7 was off for his lunch-time run as if everything was normal. And his wife was on the patio reading the paper with a hot cup of tea. Weirdest of all, when you had a brief chat this morning they didn’t so much as mention the weather. You suspect they may be robots.

Being shifty 

Truth is, it was hard to know what most of the neighbours were up to because they kept their curtains closed all day long – not so much as a twitch or a peep. Nobody going into the house, nobody coming out. You reflect that the next heatwave will be the ideal time to bump off a family member or turn the spare room into a meth lab.