Decline and Fail: Read in Case of Political Apocalypse

by John Crace

that. There was nothing more humiliating for May than having an open letter instructing people not to humiliate her.

‘No more Mr Nice Guy,’ Farage declared. No great revelation, as there never had been one.

Farage has never been one to let a spot of cognitive dissonance get in the way of the enjoyment of his self-image. Neither have his supporters.

A dream of a nostalgic return to the 1950s, when Britain was still just about hanging on to its empire. The independence of a failed state.

Tories were tanking so badly their entire strategy appeared to be to pretend the elections weren’t even happening. They didn’t even bother to have a proper campaign launch.

To round things off, he’d given an in-depth interview to the Telegraph in which he had said he hadn’t leaked to the Telegraph. Politics at its most meta.

the cabinet had never been more united. As in united in their hatred and mistrust for one another.

He retains her confidence precisely because he is so reliably useless. The faithful fool. Williamson was merely unreliably useless.

One where nuance and complexity have given way to sound-bites and populism.

Change UK redefines the very meaning of hopeless.

The former Labour MP is a charisma-free zone, a

Chuka, the patron saint of lost causes.

abject misery written into every line of her face.

She had never found a crowd that she couldn’t alienate.

The point where resilience tips into stubborn stupidity long since passed.

This from a prime minister who had mainlined procrastination for the last three years.

Boris as prime minister. A diagnosed narcissist whose entire political career had been constructed through the prism of personal opportunism.

The populist’s populist. Both the thinking man’s idiot and the idiot’s thinking man. That was the UK’s future. Good

English is the president’s second language. Bollocks being the first.

It used to be said that all political careers end in failure. But in the Conservative leadership contest everyone appears to be cutting to the chase by ensuring they start that way as well.

By which time his attempts at motivational speaking had sucked the energy out of the entire room.

causing everyone to wonder if she had turned up to the right event.

Not being Boris Johnson can do wonders for a politician’s credibility.

That one joint she smoked at university must have had a devastating long-lasting effect on her.

it became clear this wasn’t so much a leadership launch as a jobs fair for the not very talented.

Three years previously, he had had a brief window of self-awareness in which he had realised he was totally unfit to lead the country.

Only the public are less gullible than some Tory MPs.

The five men were all sitting on stools, as if they were an ageing boyband performing a one-off reunion gig. Take Twat.

Almost always a pointless exercise, but it keeps him occupied.

There again, the emeritus prime minister could just be sadistic enough to want Johnson to experience the full hubris of his ambition, knowing that he was bound to screw up big time sooner rather than later and that the Tories would be ruthless in removing him.

Tory MPs had made it clear they wanted a racist fantasist as their next leader. They could reap what they had sown.

When you’ve told so many lies, there’s always a danger you might accidentally tell the truth.

Much like his relationships. A need-to-know basis.

People had tried voting for politicians they trusted and that hadn’t worked out, so now it was time for someone who could be relied on to let you down and not tell the truth.

One with the limitless sense of entitlement who believes that normal rules do not apply to him. Being prime minister was only ever a box to tick on his CV. An ego trip of narcissistic self-gratification. It had never occurred to him that being prime minister was about other people’s needs. It had only ever been about him.

The first health secretary to have run the NHS. Into the ground.

The host Julie Etchingham, who was rapidly emerging as the evening’s runaway winner, let out a primal scream of pain.

We’d be better off picking someone from the audience at random and give them the keys to No 10.

The Tory members really were that mad.

Delighted his no-deal Brexit was now mainstream Conservative policy. As

This time there were no women involved so there would be no need to talk over anyone.

Coherence is a state to which no one now even aspires. Lying is now truth.

Britain standing up to the US by lying down.

And it will almost certainly be a disaster. Still, it’s only the little people who will suffer. And Brexit always has been about collateral damage.

make all those around him look slightly less half-witted.

insignificance over his decision to offer a £13 million contract to a ferry company that didn’t have any ferries for services to ports that had no facilities to receive them.

In the distance, the bells of Westminster Abbey pealed. The requiem for a dunce. A man who had bizarrely managed to overachieve and underachieve at the same time.

Here in the hall every pathology was on view. The smug, the needy, the desperate, the amoral and the deluded. And that was just Boris Johnson.

Javid might make it to the Treasury a little sooner if Hayes were to remove his head from his arse.

Spare a thought too for Matt Hancock, a man who has yet to find a principle he won’t betray for the advancement of his own career.