'Look at what you've done. Made me into a prostitute. My father was right,' says my wife, after introducing me on stage

5th October 2023

From the diary of Rishi Sunak, Britain’s change candidate

‘I WILL never recover from this humiliation,’ Akshata says. ‘Ordering me – me! – onto the stage in front of your tawdry pensioners to praise you.

‘I had to stand there, in front of the whole world, and say I was your best friend. How will I hold my head up back in Mumbai? What will Davos say about this?’

‘My father warned me. He knew no good could come of marrying so far beneath my station. I thought I’d be funding your failed start-ups. I never imagined… this.’

‘It’s a reset,’ I say confidently. ‘Makes me look presidential, your coming on stage.’ ‘Paraded like that cheap whore Carrie,’ she says. ‘The shame.’

‘And after that what do you do? Cancel a train? The country that covered India in railways cannot manage to connect three cities, and you boast about it. It’s your keynote policy.

‘What do you expect, that they will applaud you? Say how much it was like JFK’s famous speech about not going to the moon? You were as presidential as Hunter Biden.’

Akshata is just shy. Many multi-millionaires are, I’ve noticed. But in truth the conference hadn’t gone as hoped. Liz got queues, Suella got cheers and I got asked about HS2 so much I worry it wasn’t convincing when I decided spontaneously to scrap it mid-speech.

‘Did I come across as the change candidate?’ I ask Akshata. ‘Was I meant to look like Michelle Obama out there?’ she replied. ‘Anyway at least it is the last conference. This time next year? Free.’

Sharing a table with vermin: The gammon food critic visits a cat cafe

4th October 2023

Restaurant reviews by Justin Tanner, our retired food critic who’d always assumed Russell Brand was a poof

I FUCKING hate cats. Haughty bastards that sleep where you want to sit or rimming their own arseholes. On a scale of pointless animals they’re one step down from wasps.

Still it’s my niece’s birthday, she loves them and she’s having her party at a cat cafe that used to be a Chinese. Back then they had these little bastards on the menu.

It’s six quid just to get in, ‘to help keep our furry friends looked after and give them a happy life’ it says, idiotically. Really? Don’t they know if a cat wants a happier life it fucks off to the neighbours?

But they’re keeping them in here, with a double security entrance and a revolving door. Like these pampered little bastards would make a run for it even if they could. Surely they need to change the line-up now and again to keep the punters interested, like in a strip club.

The cats are everywhere. Under the chairs. On laps. Up on the table. Does environmental health know this shit’s going on? Do they take anonymous tips? Because this is unpleasantly unhygienic, and I still go to Kebabylon despite the multiple health violations.

My brother informs me I’m late and ask where the present is. I whip a generous tenner out of my pocket, clock his expression, and grudgingly pull out another to keep it company. Apparently that’s the going rate for a seven-year-old.

The menu has all the imagination of a school canteen. Baked potatoes with cheese, or beans, or both. Shitty frozen pizzas. Paninis with chicken and salad. All garnished with generous servings of cat hair, none less than ten quid. Fuck off.

And so commences an orgy of crappy food, delighted childish squeals and cat-stroking. if you’ve never seen a child break from eating frozen chips to stroke one of their furry, disdainful overlords, you’ve not lived. I keep hoping one of them will get scratched.

Waiting for my tuna melt, a sniff of catshit takes me back to the days when my ex kept the litter box in the kitchen. Eating every meal in an animal latrine. And people say bachelors have low standards.

The food arrives, I’m surrounded by scrounging vermin who seem to think they’ve some right to it, and apparently I’m in the wrong by telling them to piss off. Nor does my ‘I always considered myself a pussy magnet’ gag prove popular.

Wolfing the food while shoving the mewing masses away with my feet, trying to bat away their inquisitive paws, just trying to eat a fucking sandwich I snap and punch one of the bastards off the table, along with a couple of drinks.

Could have happened to anyone, but I’m very curtly asked to leave. ‘My bloody pleasure,’ I retort. ‘This place is a health risk, you need shutting down.’ Fucking cats.