I DON’T want to alarm you, but they’re coming. They’re coming to take over. It’s just a matter of time. They’ve been spotted on the lawn behind Downing Street, in the dark, staring up at the windows of the Cabinet Room.
They look more or less like members of the Cabinet, but there’s something strange, something uncanny in their manner, as they stand there, staring, waiting.
They are hungry. Ravenously hungry for power and indifferent to the suffering of anyone who stands in their way.
Some of them have already had a taste of it, and they won’t rest until they feast again.
They’re all dressed in red, white and blue and each one is armed with a pair of scissors, poised to stab in the back any opponent who tries to fight back and cling on to their government role.
This is the grim reality, whether you choose to watch it from between your fingers or ignore it by hiding under the covers. With a zombie government stumbling blindly from day to day, and the United Kingdom facing the very real threat of a chaotic no-deal exit from the EU, now is the perfect time for The Unprincipled to strike.
We are vulnerable. They are ruthless. We can try banging on the door of the oppositions’s house, screaming for them to present some kind of credible alternative that voters could support at a General Election, but it will get us nowhere. They’ll just bolt the door and draw the curtains.
READ MORE: Theresa May tells Tories she'll quit if they back her Brexit deal
If you think the worst that’s to come is food and medicine shortages, price hikes, travel chaos and the stripping back of rights and protections, ponder what kind of nightmarish government might emerge when May is finally put out of her misery.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, anyone? He can always walk away after four months or so if the whole business of understanding maps and avoiding starting wars proves too difficult.
No harm done. Who needs knowledge or aptitude when you have raw ambition and a firmly clenched jaw?
And just think of the impact Esther McVey could make as Environment Secretary. Remember when, as Work and Pensions Secretary, she told Parliament the National Audit Office had recommended the roll-out of Universal Credit be speeded up, when in fact the recommendation was to pause it? If she plays her cards right maybe we’ll next be told the experts have advised us to hurry up and accelerate climate change, while simultaneously removing all of the fish from the sea.
He insists he has no designs on the top job, but might Jacob Rees-Mogg be preparing for a go at Chancellor? We know he’s good at sitting in his counting house counting out his money, and he’s got a brilliant economic plan for racing to the bottom and buying everything on the cheap from around the world. Just hold onto your job and your plump inheritance package and you’ll be quids in.
What’s that you say? You have a zero-hour contract and no wealthy relatives to bump off? Fear not. There will always be job opportunities available for hardy souls with the right work ethic. Have you thought about suburban babysitter (triple time for October 31), winter caretaker for a deserted hotel (accommodation included), or police inspector serving remote islands with quaint traditions?
The scariest thing of all right now is that nobody knows for sure what will happen today, next week or next month. Speaker John Bercow previously insisted – very firmly – that there would be no Meaningful Vote 3 on Theresa May’s deal unless it was substantially changed, so should we take at face value the announcement that he’s had a change of heart, or should we be suspicious? The latter, obviously.
READ MORE: MPs set for Brexit vote on Friday — but it won't be 'meaningful'
Perhaps his plan for today is to transform the House of Parliament into a series of booby-trapped escape rooms and imprison all the MPs in it until such a time as they can agree a course of action.
They’ll have to reach a withdrawal agreement alright – but this will involve pleading to withdraw themselves from a chamber of horrors, a hall of mirrors and a central lobby full of reanimated marble statues roaring “SHAME!” and clobbering anyone who changed their original “meaningful” vote for shamelessly tactical reasons (those who said they were going to change it, then said they’d changed their minds about changing it, had really better watch out).
Whatever happens today, or on Monday, or on whatever date this hellish cycle of meaningful (ie meaningless) and indicative (ie irrelevant) voting finally ends, there’s a glimmer of hope on which everyone in Scotland can focus.
The EU have been asked to leave a light on for Scotland, so we can navigate our way home after a Yes vote for independence. It’s a reassuring notion, certainly, but we’ll need to keep our wits about us. What if a thick fog descends post-Brexit and we end up banging on the door of a farmhouse inhabited by a chainsaw-wielding cannibal, or checking into a European hostel that’s actually a front for a human bloodsports centre?
If UK politics feels hellishly bad now, its unlikely to get any better when the leather gloves come off
and the Tory leadership battle properly begins. Glance at the current betting odds if you dare. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
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