Fittest

While I used to be quite widely known as “Speedboat”, “Let’s have a look at what you could have won”, that seems to have gone by the by. But there are still those who call me “The Cockroach” because I would survive a nuclear war, so I welcome the Cockroach Janata Party.

Undeniably, I am a better survivor than James Murray or Dan Jarvis, each hilariously demoted back to his own old job. Had he any self-respect, then he would have resigned rather than suffer that indignity. The gum-flappers gushed for 15 years that Jarvis ought to be at least Defence Secretary, then did not even bother to name him when he was replaced while the man into whose grave he had jumped was brought back as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Similarly, Natalie Fleet went round for months telling people that she was going to replace Jess Phillips as Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls. Fleet, whose politically useful version of her past is taken entirely at face value, has lasted barely more than two months in the job, and will be remembered, if at all, for having tweeted that, “Nigel Farage and his gang of bin men get the same security as the rest of us. Sick of the faux outrage. None of them cared when a senior Reform UK politician was sharing my death threats!” A worthy successor, and possibly also predecessor, to Phillips, who was known to describe Ann Widdecombe as “a little fascist beast”.

Demotion obviously means out next time, so notice that also leaving the Cabinet but remaining a Minister is Anna Turley, the last of the Hilary Armstrong Information Exchange. And that pretty much brings us back to where we came in.