EVERY so often an MP comes along who the media decides is wonderful in every way and a future PM. Then, under the slightest scrutiny, they turn out to be rubbish. Here are just a few.
Kemi Badenoch
Is Kemi lying about the government delaying Post Office compensation? She’s quite happy to fib about post-Brexit trade negotiations, so you decide. She’s been repeatedly tipped as a future Tory leader, but her unremarkable CV suggests it’s purely down to her love of culture war bullshit. She always finds time to moan about transgender people and write to museums, and if there’s one issue Britain urgently needs to address, it’s ‘woke archaeology’.
Rory Stewart
Centrist types had a huge crush on Rory. Then he failed to do very much, and turned out to be a secret Tory who voted against public services, for tuition fees, and all the usual. Somehow it never pans out with these butch army types weedy political commentators love. Maybe being able to strip a rifle doesn’t fully qualify you to run a modern government department?
Jess Phillips
There’s been a recent trend for politics as a stepping stone to a media career, and Jess was perfect for this. Not only does she love herself, she’s got a readymade screen persona as a straight-talking Brummie mum-of-two. Basically her parliamentary career is a showreel for The Jess Phillips Show. You’d imagine it being celebrity chat, fashion and horoscopes. Maybe her good friend Jacob Rees-Mogg could do a cookery segment, because he’s an attention-seeking pain-in-the-arse too.
Louise Mensch
Forget the stuffy old Tories! Louise was young, blonde, had taken drugs and was married to the manager of Metallica! Unfortunately she kept saying stupid things on TV and jacked it in after two years. She’s since worked in online journalism with a conspiracy theory bent, so maybe it was all a Russian conspiracy to discredit ‘Cameron’s cuties’. Or maybe they were just idiots. Esther McVey was one of them, after all.
David Davis
Dave was a minister under John Major, then faded away, then had a massive career comeback thanks to Brexit. If anyone could sort it out, it was this trained-to-kill former SAS reservist. Davis rapidly turned out to be lazy, thick and utterly f**king useless, again proving soldiers don’t make the best politicians. Come to think of it, he’s never revealed much about his time in the SAS. Maybe it’s secret, or maybe he’s killed 30 of his own guys in friendly fire incidents.
Wes Streeting
‘Is Wes Streeting the saviour Labour desperately needs?’ asked the FT, giving you an idea of his appeal. Last year he said of the NHS that he would ‘hold the door wide open’ for the private sector. Because privatisation has worked out so well recently, hasn’t it? It’s an impressive disregard for facts, like saying we need to make air travel safer with a fleet of Hindenburgs.
Lee Anderson
It’s easy to forget Lee has only been an MP since 2019, probably because he wasted no time in proving he was an authentic, no-nonsense arsehole. His selling point was being working-class, something he definitely is as a former miner, but after his 30p meals crap and GB News show, most Britons now believe working-class oiks should be denied the vote and kept in cages like zoo animals.
Rishi Sunak
It’s hard to believe columnists were getting moist over ‘Dishy Rishi’. He was heralded as a dependable financial whizz, then turned out to be an arrogant twat lacking empathy with anyone not rich. Right now he’s probably doing a disastrous photo opportunity in McDonald’s where he’s asking the staff if they earn more than 200k. After the election he’ll no doubt get various lucrative gigs, but at least he’s too shit at telling jokes for the after-dinner circuit, unless anyone’s keen to hear his side-splitting ‘Captain Hindsight’ gags again.
