No one could say they weren’t warned. The Supreme Leader had promised a coalition of chaos if she lost six seats and a coalition of chaos was what the country was getting. What she hadn’t made clear was that the coalition of chaos would be all hers.

After a morning’s work of emergency repairs to her circuits, which had overloaded the night before, the Maybot was eventually in a fit state to meet the Queen shortly after 12 o’clock. Her husband Philip put her through her final tests. “Who are you?” he asked.

“I am the Supreme Leader,” the Maybot replied, rather more confidently than she felt.

“What do you want?”

“Strong and stable. Strong and stable”.

There were still a few software adjustments to be made but they would have to wait, as the car had already been parked outside the front door of No 10 for more than 20 minutes.

The Maybot and Philip walked briskly to the car, refusing to acknowledge any of the reporters penned in on the other side of the road. They didn’t even acknowledge each other. There wasn’t anything much left to say.

Well under half an hour later – considerably shorter than many people had expected – the Maybot returned from her audience with the Queen. It soon became clear why. Once she had got to the palace she had completely forgotten what it was she had come to say. She was trapped in the first stage of grief. Denial.

There had been no election. She hadn’t blown a 20-point lead in the opinion polls in just over seven weeks. She hadn’t just run the worst campaign in living memory. She hadn’t published a manifesto that had needed to be pulped before the ink was dry. Everything was normal. Nothing had happened. She was still the Supreme Leader. All was well.

The Maybot made her way slowly towards the wooden lectern set up outside the front door of No 10. Her wheels often found it difficult to cope with uneven surfaces. A helicopter hovering overhead made it difficult to pick out the Supreme Leader’s words. No matter. She didn’t really have anything of interest to say.

“I will now form a government,” the Maybot murmured in a catatonic monotone. “A government that can provide certainty and lead Britain forward at this critical time for our country.” Government. Certainty. Forward. Not the three words that were on anyone else’s tongue. It was as if she had been awoken from a seven-week cryogenic state and had decided to mix things up just for the hell of it.

Being in government with … with … with … She couldn’t remember the names of any of her cabinet colleagues. Probably because she had never taken the trouble to learn them. But whoever she had been in government with certainly didn’t warrant a mention. She was the Supreme Leader and they were just nothing. Strong and stable. Strong and stable.

The Maybot dimly remembered something called Brexit. She had called for the country to strengthen her hand in the Brexit negotiations and the country had listened. By telling her to get rid of a couple of dozen of her own MPs – natural attrition, she reassured herself – and replace them with eight members of the Democratic Unionist party. That would show the EU who was boss. Brussels couldn’t fail to be impressed by a bunch of anti-gay, anti-abortion climate deniers. Which reminded her. Perhaps she ought to have a chat with the DUP about the new arrangements sometime. Not now, though.

“Over the next five years,” the Maybot continued, oblivious to the fact that many of her colleagues were giving her five days at most. Over the next five years. Or for ever. Whichever was longer. The Supreme Leader would be strong and stable. And Britain would reach the Promised Land.

With her batteries running on empty, the Maybot spluttered to a halt. Philip stepped forward to push her back inside No 10. Larry the cat was already on the phone to his therapist. Three owners in a year would play havoc with his abandonment issues. The staff at No 10 burst into a spontaneous round of applause. It was fully deserved; never in British political history had a prime minister so spectacularly misjudged a post-election speech.