A digger burst through a wall of polystyrene bricks. At the wheel was Boris Johnson, who could barely contain his excitement. It was touch and go whether he’d remember to brake before taking out a dozen or so members of the media who had been lined up to film the event. The election campaign had just hit a new low.

On reflection, it was probably not the best idea to let a prime minister, who was only just out on day release for nicking a journalist’s phone, loose in a JCB. His advisers, doubling up as his probation officers, looked predictably harassed. Boris had said he was going to lie in front of a bulldozer, not on top of one. There again, they should have known better. Johnson has yet to find a place where he can’t lie.

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After checking his electronic tag was still functioning, the security detail frisked the prime minister’s pockets. Three more mobiles. “You’ve got previous for this,” the officer sighed. Boris smirked, tugged his hair and mumbled incoherently. It was like this. The papers kept printing photos of children in A&E that he didn’t want to look at. So far better to steal a few phones to make sure that no one ever got to see that he didn’t actually give a toss about the kids one way or the other. Hell, it wasn’t his fault he was a narcissist. And narcissists can’t do empathy. It’s just not their thing.

Half an hour later, most of the employees had been herded – some rather reluctantly – on to the floor of the new JCB plant in Uttoxeter. On the walls were printed some of the collected wisdom of Lord “Grasshopper” Bamford, the billionaire Brexit enthusiast and factory owner. “Without our customers and dealers, none of this would have been possible.” No shit. ‘Without these walls, we’d be crushed by the roof.” Truly the man is a prophet. A deluder of men. The aphorism “Without Brexit, we’d all be better off” appeared to have been recently whitewashed over.

First up was Sajid Javid, allowed out for the first time in the election campaign since his rousing speech to 12 Tory activist hostages in Bolton. Several of whom have since died. Uttoxeter beware. Saj’s futility is contagious. “The choice is stark,” he said. “We can move forwards or backwards.” And judging by the truly desperate GDP figures released earlier in the day, he rather prefers going backwards.

The chancellor droned on, oblivious to the fact that many in the audience were rapidly losing consciousness. Or taking the opportunity to catch up with the emails in their spam inbox. Corbyn was a very, very bad man. If he became prime minister there would be a “Crisis by Christmas”. Basically we would all be dead. Which is rapidly becoming an extremely tempting offer given the available choices. Vote Corbyn and Die. Hell, just give me that pencil.

“I now want to introduce my friend, the prime minister,” said Sajid. Johnson barged his way to the podium, giving the chancellor a perfunctory hug that suggested the friendship was entirely one-sided. Boris would happily dispose of Sajid without losing a minute’s sleep. Then he does that to all the guys and girls. Everything is about him.

Boris bumbled along half-heartedly. The adrenaline rush of the mechanical digger had long since worn off and he could barely string a coherent sentence together. English is at best a second language for the prime minister. His first may as well be Linear A. It was only after he had been talking for about five minutes that he noticed he’d actually read out Javid’s speech about Corbyn killing everyone a second time by mistake. Still, no one had been listening the first time either.

Then he moved on to more familiar lies. His safe place. His comfort zone. He was going to unleash the full disaster of Brexit whether it was good for the country or not. Yawn. 50,000 nurses. Yawn. 20,000 police officers. Yawn. He could give everyone everything they wanted for free. Wouldn’t cost anyone a penny.

He tried to end with a variation of his “Get Brexit Done” lie. There were 48 hours to end the deadlock. The gridlock. His mind frantically free associated to find another word ending in -ock that wasn’t complete cock. He’s becoming more automated than the Maybot. Whoever would have guessed that Theresa May would become a benchmark of artificial intelligence?

One man stood up and several others applauded, but most members of the audience barely mustered a smile. It was hard to know if this was a verdict on the performer or the performance. Or both. Boris took a couple of questions from factory workers – he didn’t appear to know there was a town called Newcastle-under-Lyme, let alone where it was, though he promised to send it a broadband router – before closing with three questions from the rightwing media who all wanted to know if he was going to be the best prime minister ever.

His minders relaxed. They had managed to avoid talking about the NHS even once and Johnson had navigated 30 minutes without nicking another phone. Who said that money spent on rehabilitation is wasted? “Now I’m going on to ...” Boris said. But he really had no idea where he was going. “Somewhere else”. Except he wasn’t going anywhere because a small swarm of Extinction Rebellion protestors had glued themselves to the front of his bus. Sometimes the metaphors write themselves.

John Crace’s new book, Decline and Fail: Read in Case of Political Apocalypse, is published by Guardian Faber. To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £15, online orders only. Phone orders min. p&p of £1.99.



