The Archbishop of Canterbury on... the VARsolery of Mikel Arteta

WAKING slumped against a wall in Lambeth following a late evening fistfight with Gloria Hunniford in which I came off much the worse, I am surprised to hear the rattle of coins. 

Peering at my own chest, I realise there is a small tin containing 27 pence below a cardboard sign, in childish writing, reading ‘PENNY FOR THE GUY’ and my emotions are conflicted.

On the one hand, I am glad that this bonfire night’s tradition has been preserved, and to be 27 pence the richer for it. On the other for the head of the Church of England to be treated as a simulacrum for the Catholic traitor Guy Fawkes is a gross ecclesiastical error punishable by hanging.

I shall certainly be writing to the head of the Board of Education about slipping standards in our schools if this is what things have come to, recounting my story, touching only lightly on the fistfight with Ms Hunniford.

I dust myself down and return to my chambers, where I read that Nadine Dorries’s new book claims that a secret cabal running the Conservative party masterminded the removal of Boris Johnson.

St Peter’s spunk-stained loincloth, that explains the mystery! I’d been completely baffled as to how a truth-telling, competent, non-psychopathic, rule-stickler, non-shambles of a human being like Boris Johnson should have ended up resigning! It couldn’t be any of his flaws because having investigated him internally, from deep inside his fucking arse, Dorries has found none! It must have been the work of some arch-criminal insider, operating from a volcano lair beneath Downing Street! Next up, Nadine, please shed light on the fucking riddle as to why you’re no longer an MP, because there must have been some massive conspiracy that had nothing to do with you being a useless cunt!

Ed Balls and former opponent George Osborne now host a podcast in which they chat jovially about the past with Osborne reminiscing how the Queen persuaded him not to impose cuts on a bagpipe school in the Highlands.

Fuck’s sake! If you pair of twats are being matey, that’s not proof of civility, that’s proof we’re living in a one-party state! You both fuck us, but one fractionally less hard! If we had a serious political system in this country, you pair of arseholes would be fighting like a sackful of coked-up weasels! The podcast would consist of the pair of you beginning with swearing – ‘You leeching Tory cunt!’ ‘You lefty fucking lunatic, come get some!’ – before throwing off your mics and smacking shit out of one another! That’s the fucking podcast we want to hear, fists to the nose and knees to the gonads, not your haw-hawing ’it’s all just a game’ bollocks!

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta said ‘I’ve been 20 years in this country and now I feel ashamed. It’s a disgrace and there’s too much at stake here,’ referring to a refereeing decision which went against his team.

Read the fucking room, you ridiculous, weird-haired little Action Man lookalike! Not even half the fucking Arsenal fans gives a ground-to-air toss about refereeing decisions right now, given the fucking state of Britain! You’re making yourself a jumped-up, petulant little shit! It’s fucking football! No one dies, everybody goes home a multi-millionaire! Stop whining like a silly little prick! 

Finally, the Government has distanced itself from home secretary Suella Braverman’s criticism of the police and a comparison of Hamas to Northern Ireland’s Orange Order, before she clarified to mean Irish Republicans.

Shit on a knobkerry, how did this evil, thick-as-a-rhino’s-turd piece of work get to to ride around in a fucking ministerial car? The Met too left wing? Sure, and Jim Davidson’s too woke and Boris Johnson’s seriously fucking underweight! I don’t know what mad agenda you’re pursuing, Braverman, and whether your next step is to call for the burning down of orphanages, except you’re obviously trying to get the fucking sack! Is that the plan, then win a leadership battle to lord it over the shrunken rump of headbangers, GB News presenters and senile bigots that will be all that’s left of the Tory party in 2025?

'I am the next leader of the Conservative party,' says Suella. I hate to agree, but I’ve set a low bar

From the diary of Rishi Sunak, Britain’s most enabling prime minister

MESSIANIC delusions I’m fine with – this time last week, I was hanging with Elon – but surely you need more of a record of achievement than Suella’s got. 

She was a bloody awful attorney general, a home secretary who can’t stop the boats she’s obsessed with who’s already survived one firing, and quite frankly she’s a cretin. But, in an aspirational example to all, she doesn’t let that stop her.

‘By 2025 I will be leading the Conservatives,’ she says, ‘and leading them into glory. Embracing our traditional values. Sealing the borders. Abolishing corporation tax and employment rights. Embraced by the British people.’

‘That, ah, hasn’t exactly happened so far,’ I venture. Suella does have a fanbase, and credit to them for overcoming their racism in her specific case, but she can’t even rally every GB News viewer.

‘Because you’re holding me back,’ she spits. ‘You wouldn’t let me set fire to the Channel. You won’t authorise nuclear force against Hamas. Sometimes I worry it’s not just rhetoric and you actually think humans have rights.

‘Once I’m out I’m a martyr, like the famous Metric Martyrs who were hung, drawn and quartered by the EU, and I’ll be unstoppable. Tory leader by a landslide. A few years in opposition and I’ll be swept into office with a mandate for war.’

‘Who with?’ I say, surprised by the new bit. I’ve heard all the rest before.

‘That’s not important,’ Suella says, ever the big-picture politician. ‘So,’ she continues, towering over me, ‘are you firing me or fucking what?’