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If mankind’s noblest aim is to scale ever-higher peaks with each passing year then today I hail the Tories as world-class mountaineers.

During 2018 I was awestruck at the fierce competition among them to be crowned supreme heartless champion in the field of ruthless hypocrisy.

We had Michael Gove saying he wanted to allow people to scavenge on council tips and Windsor council wanting the homeless kicked off their streets because a royal wedding was coming.

Jeremy Hunt called Stephen Hawking “one of our greatest ever thinkers” when he died, despite the scientist taking the then Health ­Secretary to court for “irresponsible scaremongering”.

MPs like Dominic Raab turned up at foodbanks to show empathy with the starving masses made hungry through policies they had voted for.

Then, right at the end, former Commons deputy speaker Nigel Evans, who voted for his party’s swingeing legal aids cuts in 2012, said he would now vote against them after spending £130,000 defending himself against false accusations of rape and sexual abuse.

(Image: Getty)

A classic example of the Tory belief you should always act with brutal intent to those less fortunate unless it impacts on you.

But less than a week into 2019 we’ve already seen those acts eclipsed, as it dawns on the troops that ever since the ­malfunctioning Maybot announced she’d be gone before the next election, there’s the Tory leadership up for grabs.

And the party is currently so split and toxic that 2019 could be the year ruthless hypocrisy soars to new heights.

Despicable Me-lookalike Sajid Javid cut his holiday short to take command of what he called a “major incident”. Which was 250 asylum seekers crossing the Channel in boats since November – the same number who enter the UK every three days by other means.

Going full tilt at the Tory G-spot, The Saj, as he now refers to himself, demanded warships in the Channel to repel the invaders and questioned if these desperate people who had risked their lives in ice-cold waters were genuine asylum seekers.

(Image: Jack Taylor)

Not to be outdone by The Sadgit, the man every newsreader has ­inadvertently called Mr CU Next Tuesday, Jeremy Hunt, flew to ­Singapore for photo ops in a free-market haven low on tax, wages, welfare and human rights, to tell The Moggite Tendency that this is how he would run Britain in a post-Brexit world, if they would humbly allow him.

Back home, Chris Grayling stood grinning before TV cameras looking, as ever, like Frank Spencer with a condom over his head, diverting attention from handing £14million to a ferry firm with no ships, and presiding over a ­shambolic railway system, by blaming rip-off train ticket prices on the unions.

Meanwhile, Andrea Leadsom has been phoning in pieces to right-wing papers painting herself as Maggie Thatcher Mark II, when everyone knows she’s Fanny Cradock set to gas mark one.

Staying with Fanny, be warned that these early Tory acts are mere palate-cleansers for the year of vomit-inducing hypocrisy that lies ahead.

Wait until Esther McVey demands owners of mobility scooters must pay road tax or face sanctions, and Boris Johnson pledges to redesign postboxes into a crucifix shape to avoid ­confusion with the burka.

I can’t wait.