Manifesto Madness

“If Labour win the next election then they won’t just be legalising drugs, they’ll be making them compulsory,” claims junior Health Minister Charles Conkham. “The police won’t be confiscating drugs, they’ll be handing them out and forcing people to take them!” This extraordinary claim is part of a Tory election strategy to convince the electorate that Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party is aiming to introduce ‘forced permissiveness’ as part of a plot to completely destroy traditional conservatism in the UK. “They have a ‘Manifesto of Madness’ which plans to turn the entire populace into drug addled, woolly headed liberal hippies who will vote for the sort of lunacy that Corbyn stands for,” the Conservative Party candidate told tabloid newspaper <b>The Shite</b>. “Destroying the traditionally conservative middle classes by a concerted assault upon their morals is a key aspect of their plan.” According to the prospective MP, not only will Class A drugs be available on prescription from the NHS in the event of a Labour government, but degeneracy and depravity will be further encouraged by also making prostitutes, both male and female, available on prescription. “Trust me, if that bastard Corby gets into Number Ten, then you’ll be able to get totty via the NHS on the slightest pretext: sex addiction, erectile dysfunction, depression, probably even hair loss!” he opines. “There’s no doubt that many in the middle classes will give in to temptation and fall into the sort of moral turpitude which results in voting Labour!”

It isn’t just Labour’s alleged drugs and health policies which are under fire: they also stand accused of planning to use immigration as a weapon in their war against the middle classes. “If you are a middle class family living in a property with spare bedrooms, then you will find yourself forced to let them to families of immigrants,” Junior Home Office minister Julian Oboe has claimed. “You will find yourself forcefully exposed to foreign cultures and customs as you find your houses overrun by foreign families!” Even more extraordinary are Oboe’s claims that under a Labour government there would also be enforced wife swaps, with middle class couples being forced to swap partners with working class couples. “It is all part of their crazy ideas about the redistribution of sex,” he says. “They think that working class brutes should have their share of posh totty, while working class wives should have the opportunity to get their chance to be serviced by sophisticated middle lass lovers who don’t fart in bed.” Bizarrely, Oboe also alleged that Labour is planning to make homosexuality compulsory for large swathes of middle class men in order to meet international equality targets. “It’s absolutely insane,” he rants. “It is all about minority representation targets – we haven’t got enough so we have to create more! Next thing you know, they’ll be expecting people to black up to meet racial equality targets!”

Not surprisingly, these claims have been met with incredulity in many quarters, with commentators pointing out that none of then have any basis in Labour’s manifesto. “Look, just because they haven’t said that they are going to do any of these thng doesn’t mean to say that they <i>won’t</i>,” retorts Conkham. “We’re merely extrapolating from the sort of lunacy attributed daily to Corbyn by the media.” While many analysts feel that this Conservative strategy will have little effect, as the claims made about Labour policies are too ludicrous for anyone to believe, others aren’t so sure. “Bearing in mind that a majority of Tory supporters apparently believe that large parts of the UK are under Sharia law, then I wouldn’t be so sure,” says top political analyst Justin Pirckle. “That said, these claims <i>do</i> reveal the deep seated prejudices which lurk within the Tory Party – not just racism, but rampant homophobia as well – which also underlines their hypocrisy, bearing in mind how many of them went to Eton.”

Boris Johnson himself has now waded into the controversy, denying that his party is homophobic, rather that it is concerned that traditional British family values are being undermined by the rise of ‘alternative lifestyles’. According to the Prime Minister, the problem goes back to the nineteen seventies and the sort of male role models young men were exposed to during that decade. “It was all about Tom Jones – he was held up as the epitome of heterosexual manhood,” he mumbled during a recent interview. “There were just so many young men who couldn’t live up to the expectations he engendered: all that cavorting about on boats wearing only speedos and a yachting cap during his TV specials. Not to mention that hairy chest and booming Welsh voice. Is it any wonder that so many men of the era just gave up hope of ever attracting a woman and turned gay instead? As we all know, men have lower expectations, so pulling other blokes just seemed easier.” But, Johnson went on to claim, Tom Jones wasn’t the only threat to heterosexuality rampaging through seventies popular culture. “Then there was Burt Reynolds,” he rambled. “Oh, I know that he made a valiant effort to reclaim moustache for straight men, but again, he was just <i>too</i> masculine for the average chap to compete with, with his phallic Trans Am thrusting at every woman on the road – how was the average British bloke with his Morris 1100 meant to compete with that in the bird pulling stakes, eh? That film of his, <b>Smokey and the Arse Bandit</b>, didn’t help, showing his displays of turbo charged masculinity turning that despairing sheriff gay.” The Tory leader hastened to make clear that he wasn’t, however, homophobic – despite once having used the term ‘tank top bum boys’ in a newspaper article. “Of course I don’t hate them – I went to Eton, damn it. Not to mention that half the Tory Party are closet homos,” he declared. “No, I’ve nothing against the gays. I just wouldn’t want one marrying my daughter. Or daughters, how ever many of them there are.”

Nevertheless, Pirckle believes that the Tories’ flirting with bigotry is a carefully calculated election strategy. “The reality is that there are plenty of racists and bigots out there who will happily give their vote to them on the basis that this sort of stuff indicates that the Tories <i>might</i> share their beliefs,” he claimed in his column in the <b>Sunday Bystander</b>. “That’s what this is all about – they can’t openly court the racist and homophobic vote, but they can imply that they would accommodate their views in some form.” He points out that Johnson remains unrepentant about his earlier racist remarks in newspaper columns, refusing to apologise for describing black people as having ‘watermelon smiles’ and calling them ‘picanninies’. “He knows that the bigots are out there, looking for an outlet for their bile,” he writes in his column. “With Nigel Farage, UKIP and the Brexit Party, not to mention the EDL and BNP, spent forces, he is ensuring that the Tories will be the recipients of their votes.” Pirckle believes that the bigot constituency could prove crucial in the forthcoming election. “The sad fact that is that the veneer of British liberalism is actually pretty thin,” he laments. “Just scratch the surface of the average person and you’ll find a raging reactionary bigot who wants to deport ‘darkies’, castrate homosexuals as ‘sex offenders’ and string Remainers up as ‘traitors’.”