“Look, it is high time that we on the left in politics started getting in touch with our inner nastiness,” opines top political scientist Dr Quentin Feltham-Upp. “We’ve been too nice for too long, while the Tories, the so called ‘Nasty Party’ have thrived by appealing to voters’ basest instincts and proposing the most transparently evil policies possible.” Feltham-Upp has been speaking to the press in the wake of a number of Labour politicians talking tough and coming out fighting at their recent party conference in Liverpool. In particular, there was much comment upon Labour leader Keir Starmer’s conference address, during which he suggested that Tory politicians advocating tough measures against asylum seekers should be ‘given a taste of their own medicine’ and be bundled into vans without warning, driven to a military airbase and crammed aboard a plane to be flown to a war zone. He followed this up with the suggestion that those advocating benefits cuts should be kicked out of their houses – which would then be used to accommodate asylum seekers or the homeless – and be forced to live in a cardboard box under a railway bridge instead. A number of observers claimed to have seen Starmer quaffing a glowing green liquid from a steaming test tube just before delivering his keynote speech. “His whole demeanour seemed changed when he gave that speech,” noted Abigail Fruit, a conference delegate from Staines. “He seemed somehow darker, physically hunched over with blazing eyes and sallow skin – he really seemed to be relishing the idea of punishing those rich Tory bastards!”
Feltham-Upp has claimed credit for the usually mild-mannered Labour leader’s transformation into a wild firebrand. “I know that most people think that ‘political scientists’ spend their time just arguing over ideologies and writing papers about electoral reform, but that’s simply a popular misconception,” he says. “The reality is that we’re actually interested in the science behind politics, about how political performance can be enhanced, for instance.” A qualified biochemist, Feltham-Upp realised that many on the left are simply too inhibited to be able to properly express their inner rage. “The fact is that we are generally too nice and well mannered to let out that inner nastiness,” he explains. “So, I decided that what Labour needed was some means to strip away those inhibitions and let it all out, so I came up with my formula – it is perfectly harmless and its effects only temporary, but it allows us to match the right in terms of nastiness.” Some Labour Party members, however, have expressed alarm over Feltham-Upp’s experiments, fearing that they could have unforeseen consequences. “It’s all very well saying that we need to ‘get in touch with our inner nastiness’, but surely there’s a danger that it could all go too far and unbridled unpleasantness, not necessarily directed at the Tories, released,” says Labour back bencher Harry Gruper. “Before you know it we’ll have front benchers complaining that the Tories aren’t deporting enough people, for instance. Besides, surely what differentiates us from the Tories is that we are nicer than them, that we are caring and compassionate?”
Gruper also points out that Keir Starmer’s nasty alter ego, as seen at the party conference, looked as if he was dangerously close to turning into a stereotypical villain. “I had the feeling that, at any moment, he was going to put on a cape and a top hat and start brandishing a silver topped cane,” he says, “before going out and committing depravities with prostitutes and beating poor children to death for having the audacity to beg for money with which to pay their parents’ gas bills. That really wouldn’t be a good look, let alone a vote-winner.” He also questioned whether some of the new anti-Tory nastiness might be going too far. “I’m as much for sticking to the bastards as the next man,” says the back bencher. “But I couldn’t help but feel that bit about the new energy policy including clauses to allow constituents to burn their local Tory MPs and councillors on huge bonfires to provide communal heating, was going a bit far. Isn’t that the sort of thing that will simply play into the hands of the Tory press in portraying us as a bunch of hate filled homicidal maniacs fuelled by an envy of other people’s wealth?”
Feltham-Upp has been quick to try and dispel such fears, claiming that, in the dosages used, there are limits to the level of nastiness his drug can induce. Although he admits that, during its long development process, some problems were encountered. “We tested it on a number of subjects whose influence was, we felt, limited so as to minimise the effects on public opinion if they went too right-wing,” he says. “The biggest glitch came with Ken Livingstone – it was after he’d had a few doses that he started coming out with all that stuff about Hitler loving the Jews. It really was a most unexpected side-effect that led to us adjusting the formula.” The political scientist also defended the idea of Labour becoming ‘nastier’. “The bottom line is that you have to fight fire with fire,” he muses. “Damn it, we tried all that being ‘touchy feely’ and nice under Corbyn and look where it got us – a kicking at the polls and Boris Johnson elected with an eighty seat majority! The Tories and their cronies in the press just annihilated us with their unbridled nastiness and we had no response but to offer universal jam making courses and the like!”
He has also claimed that tapping into their inner nastiness doesn’t necessarily mean that Labour has to embrace nasty policies as well. “It’s all about presentation – people like their politics rough, they want to believe that they are electing leaders who can actually fight for them, go toe-to-toe with those fat cats and bankers in a no-holds fist fight for social justice,” says Feltham-Upp. “I mean, is it any wonder Jeremy Corbyn was a serial loser – he looked and sounded like he couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag. What I’m proposing is compassionate policies pursued aggressively – we have to take the war to the Tories and show them that we aren’t going to take any shit and that we’re prepared to make them suffer!”
