Ken Doll becomes Action Man Colonel Kurtz. There was a time when Jeremy Hunt tried to position himself as the Conservatives’ voice of reason. The everyman plastic politician who could smile nicely for the cameras while patients died on hospital trolleys. That shark has long since been jumped. We are now in an apocalyptic, Heart of Darkness Brexit death spiral in which both Hunt and Boris Johnson are competing to see who is sufficiently deranged to lead the Tory party. Boris is still the clear favourite – who could resist a man who would sleep with his reflection given the chance? – but Kamikaze Kurtz is making a strong late run.

Moments after the air-raid siren had sounded the all clear, Ken strode into the airless Westminster office of the Policy Exchange thinktank. “At ease,” he began, before delivering the latest rallying cry of his leadership campaign to two rows of Tory MPs – all of whom had once been remainers but now have the no-deal zealotry of the newly converted – and a handful of reporters.

Kurtz kept his eyes fixed manically ahead. He had travelled the best part of 3,000 miles up the Mekong river to get this far and wasn’t in the mood for taking prisoners. Here was the deal. He was going to lower corporation tax – had he mentioned he was an entrepreneur? – scrap business rates, abolish illiteracy and walk tall in the world by doubling defence spending. There was nothing like the smell of napalm in the morning to concentrate the mind. Hunt had been speaking for less than two minutes and he’d already spent £50bn. At this rate, he would have bankrupted the country within half an hour.

But there was a catch. First we had to end the phoney war with Johnny Foreigner in Brussels, with a spot of carpet bombing of our own. We had been far too nice – too indulgent – with the EU and now was the time to get real. So from now on, if he became prime minister, the UK would be on red alert with his 10-point no-deal plan.

“Pay attention, everyone,” he commanded. Point one was to have a 10-point plan. No detail was too small for Colonel Kurtz. Point two was to cancel all August leave for those civil servants who didn’t have a signed note from their mum saying they had done their no-deal homework. He, of course, would still be taking his hols as he had booked a very expensive villa with pool in Tuscany and it was too late to get a refund.

Point three was to declare war. Point four was to put Chris Grayling in charge of logistics to keep casualties to under 550,000. Point five was have a point five. Point six was to print hundreds of billions of pounds under an emergency war budget. Point seven was to spend the cash supporting everyone whose jobs would be lost in the war. It would be no different to bailing out the bankers. What wasn’t to love about 10 more years of austerity for the glory of delivering the One True Brexit? Points eight and nine were top secret and strictly on a need-to-know basis.

Point 10 was to give the EU three weeks exactly to agree to whatever peace terms we wanted. And if it refused, he would take a break from attending the Conservative party conference in Manchester to unleash the dogs of war. The EU wouldn’t know what hell had hit it once the UK had declared war on itself.

Ken took a deep breath. None of this was going to be easy, he admitted. Sacrifices would have to be made. Just not by him. Though heaven knows how much he had suffered when his company had had a cashflow problem and he had been forced to sack several admin assistants. Shropshire sheep farmers would have to rethink their business model. By killing all their sheep and trafficking their children to eastern Europe. That would give the EU a taste of its own medicine. He concluded by reminding everyone that, though it had been broadcast around the world, his briefing had been strictly on a need-to-know basis. So no one, especially MPs, should put the nations’s security at risk by blabbing any of this to Brussels.

“Right,” said Colonel Kurtz, his voice clipped with the thrill of self destruction. “Any questions?” There were. Plenty. And they were all pretty much the same. None of this made sense. He was making promises he couldn’t keep and spending money he didn’t have. Had he gone completely insane? “I believe I am rational,” he snarled. Because the only logical way to beat Johnson was to act as if he was totally irrational. But even then he wasn’t nearly mad enough for the 160,000 Tory members.