I, Maybot

by John Crace

  Sarah donned her Marigolds, strode into a back bedroom and consciously uncoupled Mikey. Back in their west London house, she gave Mikey a strong talking to. ‘Look, Mikey,’ she said. ‘I didn’t support Vote Leave just for you to get shafted by Boris. You might have thought the referendum was all about the country but it wasn’t. It was all about me. So get your finger out.’

  On Thursday morning at 9 a.m., Mikey duly obliged by releasing an email saying although he had promised the country countless of times that he definitely wouldn’t be standing for leadership of the Conservative party he had now decided to stand for leadership of the Conservative party because Sarah had another Daily Mail column to write and fancied being in the government. Mikey tried to warn Boris in advance, but unfortunately his phone was out of charge. He was sure Boris would understand, though.

  Over at St Ermin’s Hotel in Westminster, Boris was busy preparing to launch his own leadership campaign. The bunting was out and so were his supporters: Nadhim Zahawi, Crispin Blunt, David Davis and Jesse Norman. The first sign of the impending shit storm was the arrival of Zac Goldsmith, a man who has never knowingly backed a winning side. The second was a minder asking everyone to wait outside the room. ‘There’s tea and coffee over there,’ she said, helpfully.

  ‘Is the announcement still going ahead?’ I asked.

  ‘There’s tea and coffee over there.’

  Twenty minutes later than planned, we were all let in and Boris was greeted with a standing ovation by his acolytes. But this wasn’t the Boris they had come to know and love. This was a Boris whose gags were falling flat. A Boris whose heart just wasn’t in it. A Boris who could quote a speech from Julius Caesar seemingly oblivious to the irony of treachery. A Boris who was used to being the stabber, not the stabbee. A Boris whose career had been undone by a Poundland Lord and Lady MacGove.

  Boris couldn’t resist a bit of drama, delaying the announcement that he wouldn’t after all be standing for the Conservative party leadership right till the end, but that was just about the only sign of life he gave. The deflation was near total. Boris had only ever come out for Leave to get the top job and now his ambition was dust. Nadine Dorries was in tears by the end; so it wasn’t all bad.

  Within minutes of Boris standing down, his closest supporters were saying they would now be backing anyone but Gove. Unbelievably, the two men who had campaigned so hard and often so unpleasantly together during the referendum were now engaged in open warfare. Brexit had never been wholly about Brexit. It had been a disguise for a Tory party leadership contest. Thanks for nothing, boys. I hope it was worth it.

  Theresa May had looked much more chipper at her own leadership launch in the establishment setting of the library of the Royal United Services Institute on Whitehall. Having spent most of the referendum campaign supporting Remain by saying nothing, she was understandably a bit croaky – her vocal cords are still recovering from lack of use – when presenting herself as the woman who could unite the country and take Britain out of the EU.

  ‘I’m a straightforward kind of politician,’ she said. ‘I don’t indulge in gossip, I just get on with the job.’ Well, not that much. Earlier in the week, she had lunch with the Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre, but I am sure they were just chatting about the football. Had she known Boris was going to step down, she’d have toned down some of the barbs – ‘The only deal he has ever done with the Germans is to buy three creaky water cannons’ – and directed them against Mikey. But there would be time enough for that. Out of one ménage à trois with Boris and Mikey and into another with Mikey and Sarah. Things were about to get even messier.

  * * *

  In the subsequent leadership race, Stephen Crabb and Liam Fox were knocked out in the first round. Crabb because no one knew who he was and Fox because everyone knew exactly who he was. Gove predictably fell at the next hurdle, leaving a straight fight between Andrea Leadsom and Theresa May. Leadsom had mysteriously risen without trace. In the first outing of her campaign she had seemed to imply that her main strength was that she, unlike May, was a mother, and in a subsequent event that was billed as a ‘major speech on the economy’ she had barely mentioned the economy.

  Her ‘Rally4Leadsom’, consisting of Tim Loughton, Theresa Villiers and a handful of bemused stragglers walking a couple of hundred yards to Westminster shouting,

  ‘Who do we want?’

  ‘Andrea Leadsom!’

  ‘When do we want her?’

  ‘Sometime quite soon!’

  was the highlight of the Tory leadership campaign – for the political sketch-writers, if not for Leadsom. Within days, she had given an interview to The Times in which she had repeated her insistence that being a mother made her better qualified, and this time the ensuing outcry forced her to drop out.

  The Tory leadership race had turned into a race for the bottom and was over before it had even really got going, with Theresa May becoming prime minister by default. Just as in the referendum campaign, where she had remained largely mute, May’s success owed as much to her silence as anything else. She had only made one short speech, in which she had said disobliging things about Boris – and even this had been entirely unnecessary given Boris’s inglorious exit from proceedings immediately afterwards – and no one had really even thought to question her less than impressive credentials as home secretary.

  * * *

  Boris? Michael? Andrea? Theresa rules the roost after manic Monday

  11 JULY 2016

  Just another manic Monday. Little more than a day after receiving a text from Andrea Leadsom saying: ‘Soz I sed u wld b rubbish leedr cos u is not a mum,’ Theresa May walked into a meeting of the 1922 Committee in Portcullis House to be anointed as the next prime minister. Ten minutes later she left to a standing ovation from Conservative MPs trying to outcompete one another in expressions of undying devotion. Boris who? Michael who? Andrea who?

  If Theresa looked a little nonplussed when she appeared with her husband and inner circle of loyal MPs outside St Stephen’s Gate, she wasn’t the only one. Even by recent standards this was all a bit quick. Only the Conservatives can combine the brutality of a Stalinist purge with the low comedy of a Carry On film. It had trusted the country to reach the right decision in the referendum campaign and it wasn’t going to make the same mistake again by giving the untamed fringes of the Tory party a say.

  ‘Honoured and humbled,’ she mumbled. ’Brexit means Brexit.’ Though not necessarily, if the man by her side, Chris Grayling, was to become minister for Brexit. Grayling has yet to find a ministerial job he can’t do slowly and badly. Having said the bare minimum, Theresa scarpered off home to wonder how a day that had started off with her launching her leadership campaign in Birmingham had ended with her landing the top job. Seldom had so much been achieved in British politics by saying and doing so little.

  The first sign that Westminster had accidentally overdosed on speed yet again was when the net curtains twitched at Andrea Leadsom’s leadership campaign head-quarters in Westminster shortly after midday. Moments later Steve Baker, Owen Paterson, Iain Duncan Smith and Tim Loughton trooped out the front door to form a Dad’s Army-esque Praetorian guard on the doorstep. Then came Andrea.

  The wider Andrea’s smile became, the more furious IDS looked. Quantity theory in action. ‘I have a statement which is mine which I wish to read out,’ Andrea smiled. IDS lowered his eyes. If anyone said a word out of place, the pavement was going to get it. Forget the velvet glove of compassion. There was more than one career here that was about to be shot down in flames.

  ‘It has only just come to my attention I have the support of just 25% of Conservative MPs,’ she continued, forcing the words through the fixed smile, ‘and that, in these uncertain times, the country doesn’t need a nine-week leadership campaign.

  ‘I’ve also taken a look at the people around me and decided most of them are an electoral liability. So I have decided to withdraw my name from the contest and let Theresa May be prime minis
ter. Sorry to have made such a nuisance of myself. I’m now going to lie down in a dark room.’

  Andrea declined to take any questions, so we never did get to find out how it had taken her four days to work out that most of her own MPs thought she was far too hopeless to be leader, when everyone else had done the sums in a matter of seconds. Percentages can’t have been her strong point when she was working in the Barclays call centre.

  It was left to Andrea’s cracked troops to pick up the pieces. Most chose to jump ship at the earliest opportunity. ‘Andrea has been absolutely brilliant but I’ve always secretly thought Theresa was the right man, sorry woman, for the job, party must unite blah blah and if you’re recording this then I am definitely interested in any jobs that might be going.’

  Only Loughton remained faithful to the Belle Dame sans so much as a merci. ‘There have been dark forces at work,’ he muttered. He meant journalists accurately reporting answers freely offered, but might just as well have been referring to the Tory party itself.

  ‘Another Brexiter leaves the scene of the crime,’ yelled a passerby who had just happened to catch the tail end of Leadsom’s speech. He had a point. One by one, the prime architects of the Vote Leave campaign had managed to stab one another in the back, front and sides, and now the last one standing had thrown herself onto the funeral pyre.

  Back at No. 10, David Cameron was on the phone to his therapist trying to deal with his self-destructive issues when he heard that Theresa was going to be moving in a great deal earlier than anticipated. ‘Bugger it,’ he yelled. It just wasn’t fair. Now he wouldn’t get to fly in his brand-new Dave Force One plane to Africa. Now he’d miss his last G20. Now he’d have to find somewhere to rent as he’d given his tenants notice to leave in September. The way the day was going, George would forget to bring back a suitcase full of dollars from New York.

  ‘I’m off on Wednesday afternoon,’ he announced grumpily to the single camera parked outside the Downing Street door. ‘Good luck to the lot of you.’ Dave took a couple of deep breaths, trying to calm himself down as he marched back inside. It was no good. He was still furious. Perhaps humming might help. The theme to The West Wing somehow felt appropriate. Then for the removals. And cut.

  Choosing a cabinet might be fun after all, thought Theresa

  13 JULY 2016

  It hadn’t been the easiest of meetings with the Queen. After observing that they both had husbands called Philip, the conversation had rather died. Eventually, the Queen had broken the silence and asked, ‘And what do you do?’ Theresa May had been nonplussed by that. She didn’t do anything. Doing nothing had been the only quality she had needed. One by one her opponents had offed themselves in ever more ridiculous circumstances until she was the last one standing. ‘I suppose I must be the prime minister,’ she said, kneeling before the Queen.

  The car journey back from the palace hadn’t exactly been a bundle of laughs, either, once she’d read David Cameron’s leaving speech. What was it he had said again? ‘I’m leaving Britain a stronger country.’ Was he mad? It was precisely because the country was in such a mess that Dave had been bundled out at short notice. Still, a little graciousness wouldn’t go amiss. Social niceties weren’t her strong suit, but she could probably rustle something up.

  As her grey government Jag parked up in Downing Street for the first time, she walked briskly across the street towards the prime ministerial lectern with her husband in tow a couple of paces behind. ‘David Cameron has done a brilliant job in uniting the country in fury at the clueless way he has handled the referendum,’ she began.

  Theresa thought about adding something about the government’s budget promises being left in tatters, but decided against it. This wasn’t the time for small talk. She reached into her back pocket for the speech she had given at her Birmingham leadership launch. No one would notice the recycling, as Andrea Leadsom’s self-immolation two days previously had meant no one had bothered to report it.

  ‘If you’re black … If you’re white working-class … If you’re a woman … Life can be a struggle,’ she said. ‘My government will not be for the privileged few.’ Up in north London, Ed Miliband choked on his tea. This was exactly the speech he had intended to give if he had won the general election the year before.

  Beyond the Downing Street gates, a group of protesters chanted: ‘What do we want? Brexit. When do we want Article 50? Now’, but Theresa ignored them. She knew full well that fudging an exit from the EU was at the top of her in-tray. There was no point in making life any more difficult for herself by making promises she might not be able to keep.

  Speech over, she retreated for the obligatory doorstep photograph with her husband. ‘Try to smile,’ Philip said. ‘Why should I?’ she replied through pursed lips. The snappers weren’t satisfied. They wanted the money shot. ‘Give her a kiss,’ they yelled. ‘Give her a kiss.’ Theresa faced them down. She was the prime minister, not some performing seal. Who did they think she was? David Cameron?

  Once inside No. 10, Theresa checked her phone. The inevitable obsequious tweet about how sodding marvellous she was from Matt Hancock, who had never yet found a bum in which he didn’t want to place his nose. Tough Matt. No big job for you. Then she called Philip Hammond; he was dull enough to be given the treasury. Next up, Boris. People always said she didn’t have a sense of humour; well she’d prove them wrong. She’d always intended to ditch the public school boys, but everyone would enjoy Boris getting a hospital pass of foreign secretary. Let’s see how he got on with all the foreigners he’d managed to insult over the years. Choosing a cabinet was more fun than she had imagined.

  The jostling for position had started at prime minister’s questions, with all the Tories taking their seats much earlier than usual. Killing two birds with one stone: waving Dave off and making a good impression in front of Theresa. Some were just a bit too quick off the mark. Poor old Greg Clark, the secretary for communities and local government, who had got in early doors, was kicked off the front bench to make way for more deserving causes. And more desperate ones.

  Liam Fox was leaving nothing to chance; having been the first to be kicked out of the Tory leadership race on a ‘Brexit means going to war with the Hun’ ticket, he has been clinging to Theresa like a limpet ever since. Fearful he might get lost in the crowd of backbenchers behind her, Fox had positioned himself directly in her eyeline in the overspill gallery. On his head was a neon sign, flashing ‘See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me, Gissa Job’. ‘Chill, Liam,’ she mouthed. ‘Needy isn’t a good look.’

  The rest were left to take their chances as Theresa made her entrance into the chamber. No one wanted to be the first person to stop cheering for fear of appearing disloyal, so the applause went on for far longer than was strictly necessary. The Law of Inverse Disloyalty. George Osborne used the few minutes he had unlimited access to Theresa’s right ear to make more bantz than in the last six years. ‘Hi, it’s me,’ he said. ‘I’ve always loved working with you.’ Theresa ignored him. He didn’t know it yet, but he was toast.

  Theresa slumped back in her seat. This was about as good as it was going to get. Brexit was bound to end in tears. Her career was bound to end in tears. Politics was like that. But she did have one advantage. At least she had one thing going for her. There was no opposition. At PMQs the entire Labour party had been playing Pokémon Go on their mobiles, desperately hunting down a leader. For now the trickiest bastards were all behind her. Even if they weren’t yet with her.

  Talk to the hand, Leadsom: Theresa May’s perfect first day

  14 JULY 2016

  Theresa May bounced into her Westminster office. She could have just sacked the dead wood over the phone like most prime ministers have done, but why deny herself the pleasure of doing it in person? First in the queue outside her door was Michael Gove.

  ‘Hello, you treacherous little shit,’ she said, evenly. ‘I’ve never liked you. Let alone trusted you. You’re fired.’

  ‘Please don’t,’
Mikey whimpered. ‘Sarah will kill me if I come back with nothing. I’ll do anything. Junior minister in transport …’

  ‘Next.’

  Next was Nicky Morgan. ‘Can you give me one good reason why I shouldn’t get rid of you?’ Theresa snapped. Nicky’s mouth opened and closed without saying anything. Same as it always did.

  ‘Next.’

  In came Oliver Letwin. ‘You’re sacked.’

  ‘Really? I didn’t even know I had a job.’ Oliver had never been the most worldly of politicians.

  ‘Brutal reshuffle,’ shouted the hacks gathered in Downing Street as Theresa walked back into No. 10. Theresa grinned for the cameras. Yes, it had been and she’d enjoyed every second. She had waited years to settle some of these scores. Now for the equally fun bit of dispensing favours that could be cashed in later.

  Liz Truss was first through the door. Liz had gone down a storm at the previous year’s party conference, venting her fury at cheese. Who better to put in charge of justice? ‘Freedom for the Wensleydale Four,’ Liz shouted cheerfully on her way out.

  Then came a nervous-looking Jeremy Hunt. Understandably. Theresa had already briefed the BBC that he was going to be sacked.

  ‘I know I’ve been totally useless and I’ve messed up with the junior doctors,’ Jeremy pleaded. ‘But I can do better. I promise.’

  ‘Lucky for you, no one else wanted your poisoned chalice,’ said Theresa, narrowing her eyes to mere slits. ‘But you’re on a final warning. One more cock-up and you’re toast.’

  ‘Oh thank you, thank you.’

  Jeremy couldn’t help punching the air for the photographers as he walked out of No. 10. ‘I haven’t been sacked,’ he yelled. Everyone was just as astonished as he appeared to be.