By Abigail Pennson, our reasonable, plain-speaking middle-class columnist slightly to the right of Hitler
‘IT was a party because someone had a cake, you see,’ I explained to Zlata as she folded washing. ‘So the democratic will of the people must be overturned.’
‘Like bunga-bunga party?’ she asked. Zlata’s only been in the country two weeks, but she’s very politically aware. ‘The dancing nudes and the cokey-nose?’
‘No,’ I replied. ‘No, none of that. Just work colleagues. There was a cake but it never left its Tupperware, there were a few warm beers, and then the prime minister got on with steadfastly leading the nation through crisis.’
‘But,’ I continued, ‘apparently that means he must resign, along with the chancellor, and leave this country rudderless in a time of crisis. There’s no choice. The BBC says so.’
Now I haven’t known Zlata long. She just does a bit of cleaning, cooking, gardening and childcare for me cash-in-hand, well below minimum wage. But I have never seen such fire in her eyes as that moment.
‘You tell them,’ she said, in a voice shaking with restrained fury, ‘tell them no. Tell them Boris is war hero. Best friend Zelensky and saviour Ukraine. Tell them over my dead body.’
Sometimes it takes such clarity of thinking, expressed in admittedly broken English, to blow your confusion away. Zlata’s words were the wake-up call I needed.
Of course Boris – the political colossus who steered us through Brexit and a pandemic – must stay. Of course he’s done nothing wrong. Of course this is all a Remainer coup.
Of course the left’s agents of Putin are determined Boris, the Lion of Kyiv, must fall. Of course they’re using our own strengths of common decency and fairness against us.
Of course everyone in Britain did the same as Boris and worse. The teachers, the social workers, the nurses and the actors – the real enemy – had parties ten times the size. But nobody’s calling for Rita Ora to resign from government.
‘You’re right, Zlata,’ I said, emboldened by her simple Slavic common sense. ‘We will fight them. We will ignore the next fine, and the next, and the next and the Sue Gray report.’
‘We will fight them on the parties, on the Peppa Pig speeches and on the pensions triple lock, and we will never surrender!’ I roared. Zlata had gone. She left only her wisdom behind.
