Stepping down is a stepping stone for someone stepping up to the plate. Theresa May is using her last legs to walk away from the top job with her head held low.
The race is on to find her replacement. Almost everybody in the parliamentary Conservative party has put their best foot forward to step into her kitten heels.
They won’t choose someone better than May. That would be like admitting they got it wrong last time, and they never do that. So the Tories are looking for someone even worse.
Fortunately, this means they have a huge field to choose from. But who will be the lucky loser? Who will claim the poisoned chalice? Here at LCD Views we have to concede, grudgingly, May’s success in securing a Brexit deal, even if it was shit. Who among the runners and riders could do almost as well?
“It’s like the Grand National,” argued analyst Roy Lascott. “The favourites will crowd each other out, fall at the first hurdle, and hopefully be put down.”
But who will win? “A 50-1 outsider will romp home,” said Lascott. “The winner will be less ambitious, less talented and far more cautious than any other candidate. The worst horse generally wins, and this is as true for horse racing as it is for Tory party leadership contests.”
Lascott gave LCD Views a run-down of some of the hopefuls. “Boris’ blokey bluff and bluster won’t wash with the wily Europeans,” he said. “They have professional politicians over there, rather than the not-very-gifted amateurs we have in the UK. Jeremy C. Hunt, well the name says it all. If you ask Dominic Raab to distinguish between Mark Francois and a nineties indie band, you will find he can’t tell an arse from Elbow.”
What of the other candidates?
“Michael Gove is only standing so he can stab Boris in the back again,” opined Lascott. “Sajid Javid has a chance, since he makes May look compassionate by comparison. Jeremy Corbyn is so useless that, if he weren’t in the Labour party, he would be a shoe-in.”
“To be honest, the best available candidate cannot stand – John Bercow. He would certainly bring oooooorrrrrrrddddeeeerrrrrr!”