The aspect of Theresa May’s calamitous conference speech that worried me most was the letters falling off the wall. For most viewers, that was just the amusing punchline to the sketch. The main bits were the comedian with the spoof P45, the coughing, the water, the throat sweet from Philip Hammond, the throat sweet joke from Theresa May, and, of course, Amber Rudd bullying Boris Johnson into helping her elicit a standing ovation to buy time for their leader to hawk something meaningful up in the hope of restoring medium-term vocal competence.

Summarised like that, it sounds like a brilliantly entertaining speech. But one must remember that these titbits of non-tedium were spread out over an entire hour. It’s a gag rate that even the least sparky series of Last of the Summer Wine never stooped to. Which is why, even though I am writing an article about the speech for a national newspaper, I have not watched it. I absolutely refuse to watch it. Nothing on earth is worth that.

Play Video 1:09 Everything that went wrong during Theresa May’s speech – video

For me, it was all about the letters. Everything else is excusable. It’s certainly not the first time a prankster with a prepared joke has disturbed the mood of such an occasion. I imagine Simon Brodkin was rather hoping he’d be the main, if not the only, disruption to the speech. So, in a way, it was wise of May to cough her guts up to draw attention away from him. If she could have managed a full Hugh Bonneville in Downton Abbey-style blood puke, Brodkin would probably have been completely forgotten.

She could become like one of those children who’ve been sneezing solidly for years in defiance of global specialists

She’s got a nasty cold – that doesn’t make her a bad prime minister. Obviously she is a bad prime minister, but not because she’s got a cold. Some would argue the cold makes her a worse prime minister – and, as giving speeches without croaking and phlegming is part of the job, it’s a persuasive point. Personally, though, I think the cold, by inhibiting how effectively she can put her ideas into practice, will have marginally improved her performance in the post. If she lost her voice completely, she might rise to the dizzy heights of only as crap as Eden.

The issue is moot anyway, because she will almost certainly recover from the cold. It’s not going to kill her, is it? Though, if it does, I think I’d still rather see her rotting remains propped against the dispatch box until the next election than let Boris Johnson form a government. But recovery is almost certain.

I suppose, if you press me, there’s a tiny chance she neither recovers nor dies. She could become like one of those children you hear about who’ve been sneezing solidly for years in defiance of global specialists. Theresa could become a late middle-aged version of that, with coughing and spluttering thrown in – someone just unstoppably sneezing and hacking and croaking and spitting for decades and decades. I think I’m getting a sense of what it felt like to watch the whole speech.

If that does happen, I think the country can use it. Keep her in office, in Downing Street, but knock down the front wall and replace it with a glass screen and let tourists go and watch. For practical reasons, she’d only really be the titular head of the government, but I think, for Britain going forward, the freak show element is something we can exploit. Particularly once all that PC nonsense from Brussels has been swept aside. We’ll be free to reopen the viewing gallery at Bedlam, shove all the animals from London zoo back into their Tower of London dungeon from which the bleeding heart liberal elite unaccountably released them in 1831, and decriminalise pickpocketing and child prostitution.

The whole of London could become a dark Dickensian theme park, like something Scrooge would dream after a trip to Disneyland and a whole brie. Lawless, colourful and festive. An impenetrable, smog-filled labyrinth of unaffordable street food and random acid attacks. Weave your way via unlicensed minicab between the diesel particulate-smeared glass head offices of accountancy firms, and blocks of flats evacuated because of fire safety concerns. The haunting sight of Theresa May pacing the cabinet room, features ravaged by the effort of constant expectoration, desperately trying to say something audible about council houses, energy suppliers or not giving up, while Japanese tourists tempt her with Strepsils, would fit perfectly into this grisly aesthetic. As a nation, we could really double down on decline.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Illustration by David Foldvari.

Sorry for the emphasis on decline but those letters falling off really got to me. How did that happen? The specific practical answer we were given was that the magnets holding them up were loosened by the audience’s repeated standing up, sitting down and clapping. It’s an answer that raises more questions: were they not expecting lots of standing up, sitting down and clapping? Perhaps there was slightly more than average because of the need to give the PM extra coughing time, but there was always a chance that there’d be ovations because the speech was really good. Was that a possibility the organisers had ruled out?

And why were they held on by magnets? Is that how signs are usually made? Are the M and S on an M&S held up by magnets in case they need to be quickly reversed if the company decides on an overnight sexual rebrand? Why not print the letters on the backdrop? The slogan in question – “Building a country that works for everyone” – is so banal as to insult the intelligence of everyone who sees it but, if it’s about anything, it’s about solidity and competence. Keeping the letters loose, in case of a last-minute central office command to anagrammatise it, is the wrong risk to take.

Others blamed the fact (which was news to most of us) that the Conservatives took their events management back in-house two years ago to cut costs. That’s quite the metaphor for Brexit. They stopped sending money away to outsiders, took control themselves, and everything fell to bits.

This was an extremely easy cock-up to avoid and, from some very important people’s point of view, it was very important to avoid it. So the fact that it happened anyway makes me queasy. This bad sign is an incredibly bad sign – about the Tories and possibly the whole country. Led by Theresa May, we’re turning into a place where the absurd and lamentable are commonplace. What an inauspicious moment in our history to become risible.