“Amber’s mistake was writing her lies down on paper and not on the side of a big, red bus,” professional truth talker Boris Johnson MP (for Ruin) told us this morning over croissants and flat whites so trendy they were served on plates to make them really flat.
“How is one supposed to drink these bally coffees?” Boris wanted to know, “they should serve them with a straw.”
Your mate Gove has banned straws.
“Fracking hell, that’s right. Little sod. He should ban knives. I’d sleep better.”
So tell us about Amber Rudd’s mistakes?
“Rookie errors really,” Boris says, lifting his plate of coffee up and slurping at the edge, “It’s a question of perspective really. As regards the people you’re lying to. Make it big and bold as brass. And make it vague! Don’t write it down clearly on paper with official letterheads. I’ve no sympathy for her. Pieces of paper are so easily leaked…if you’ve the right person at a big newspaper. A big bus is watertight.”
But your big bus lie was filmed. It’s there forever. Paper can be shredded.
“Written down words are really small. Like ants. You never get them all. But a suggestion, that’s wriggle room, emblazoned on the side of a moving target that will be interpreted as a promise? That’s the magic touch. Class act.”
Amber stuck it out a long time though.
“Wouldn’t you? One step away from the throne? A career of ruined businesses behind her? What’s she going to do? Go back into private enterprise? With her CV?!
Now, must dash, I have to go and prep a close family member to start leaking stuff about Javid to the papers. Got to keep the instability going. This is how I survive. This is how I prosper. One headline after another. Just think of the success he’s made of housing. Record rough sleeping. He’s primed already.”
And the country? What about the country?
“Party before country. We know it. Labour knows it. But me before party. And I am the country now. I am its face to the world.”
That doesn’t help me sleep well at night.
What are you doing about getting Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe out of jail in Iran? That would be a good headline for you.
But he was already gone.