SERIOUSLY worried I’d been too successful out there, Sir Keir. They were clapping every other sentence of my big speech. Then I remembered: they’re nutters.
At first I thought they’d rumbled me. That I’d been exposed as a Labour agent deep within the Conservatives at my very moment of glory and they were mocking me by applauding empty platitudes about loving enterprise.
Then I looked out at the audience and realised they’re mad as snakes. Tory members, ponying up monthly for the shitshow of the last 12 years, people who really believe that all Boris did wrong was look at a cake.
I rattled through the speech, no longer worried at all about my oaken delivery or it being unintelligible nonsense. They even cheered when I mentioned the anti-growth coalition we made up like I was James Bond exposing Spectre.
And when I finally ran out of Thatcherite inanities and got off stage, it was going great. Priti was glaring at Suella, Gove was spilling the tea about Kwarteng’s remedial maths classes at Eton, and Penny had gone pro-benefits faster than she went anti-trans.
The whole party’s locked in civil war, you’re 25 points ahead in the polls, mortgages are rarer than diamond dog turds and we’re rebranding the winter of discontent as Tory. I’m doing well, right?
Because I know you’re cross about the U-turn on the tax rate. You’d really pushed for it, it was the flagship policy to discredit Conservatism for a decade, then I caved in when Shapps threatened me. Sorry. He had a knife.
