But what if the nightmare were reality, what if the grotesque were to emerge as fact, what if as the cinema doors open our worst fears were confirmed.
I'm talking of course of Boris as our next Prime Minister. A nightmare in the making.
The bumbling, incoherent Foreign Secretary, fired for incompetence in the junior job gets his paws on the real leavers of power and starts to run the country.
Self flagellation was always the realm of the unbalanced mind, someone who gained pleasure from inflicting pain on themselves was always seen as sordid. It goes against the grain of common sense to whip oneself, evoking some sort of masochistic satisfaction through the pain. It's not the sort of thing which gets you certified but as a fetish, its right up there as being close to unhinged.
And yet it seems after a three year bout of self inflicted misery we seem set to anoint the clown of all clowns to lead us into the promised land. This dissembler of truth, this flagrant womaniser, this man of few discernible convictions other than his insatiable desire to become PM.
I thought our system of government was clever enough to weed out the weak and the insane. I thought wise heads prevailed over our woolly inconsistencies. I thought common sense would inevitably prevail and what was obvious to me was obvious to the majority but no, we must now sit back and watch this farcical comedy of errors unfurl before our eyes unable to do anything about it.
History reveals a line of past Prime Ministers, ideologically driven men and women, from Lloyd George, to Churchill, from Attlee to MacMillan, from Wilson to Thatcher, to Blair and Mrs May all in their way respected holders of this most powerful office, all held either the grudging or enthusiastic respect of the nation for carrying out the duties of office because it was through the way that office of Prime Minister was projected reflected on all of us.
I am told by the bookmakers Boris Johnson is well ahead in the votes to succeed Mrs May. Perhaps this signifies, more than anything else the poverty of candidates within the Tory Party. A populist over any intellectual substance seems to chime with our hunger for the likes of the Jeremy Kyla show with its bullying and baiting of people who clearly had mental health problems. Perhaps we have become a nation of voyeurs, exploiting the vulnerable for our own titillation and the sight of Boris dangling from a wire or grinning innately at some foreign dignitary whilst searching in the debris of his troubled mind to grasp a question we ordinary mortals could understand but which the Latin and Greek scholar, still a boy in men's trousers, could not be definitive about, perhaps this all fits in with our obsession for lampooning the weak and vulnerable in what we sadly call 'reality' TV
I've watched Boris, when he was Mayor of London batting aside important questions from the Assembly as if, to give a meaningful answer was a joke and that his role was that of a ringmaster prodding the animals with his whip as they paraded around him. Not totally incoherent but treating the London,Assembly as if it were his private domain in which he was allowed the part of 'the Joker'.
Who are these Tory Party Members who play such an important part in electing a new leader of the party. Chair persons of the local branch of the party, supposably people with a firm grasp of tradition but who this time seem mesmerised by the banality of the show. Perhaps the very people who watch Jeremy Kyle each week.
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