Jeremy the Gardener.
Fellow geriatrics will have sympathised. When a man reaches the age at which he remembers to wear a vest when he goes out, he also sends off to the Daily Express for one of those natty little gardening stools from which you can weed the dandelions without facing the ignominy of having to crawl towards the apple tree in order to haul yourself upright again.
After 30 years of addressing audiences in smokey pubs of rapt Labour activists, all clutching a pint in one hand, blaming Israel, the US, the French for everything from your overflowing dustbin, to the fact that the bank expect you to repay your loan â he woke up one day and realised that he faced an audience too far…
You canât clutch a great-grandmother round the knees and pull yourself upright, sheâs not an apple tree, especially not when sheâs the Queen. No, there was no way Jeremy could get down on his knees to the Queen.
Itâs not as though heâs a proper Republican, not like Martin McGuiness â Jeremy has been swearing allegiance to Her Majesty for donkeyâs years â He does it afresh after every election. He wouldnât get paid if he didnât.
I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors, according to law.
See? Not just the Queen, her children, her grandchildren and everyone else that might possibly end up on the throne. Jeremy has pledged his allegiance to them all â I make it eight times â thatâs about as Monarchy supporting as you can get. I support the Queen, but you wouldnât catch me pledging allegiance to Prince Charles…
Not that Jeremy is obsessed with her of course â on the day that she became the second longest reigning monarch he was busy signing Early Day motions, 29 of them, ranging from outrage at âalcohol fuelled violenceâ to calling the âLiving Wageâ the, er, âLiving Wage. Earlier worries included fretting over the Chinese eating dogs, and the use of pigeons in war time. That last included putting his name to a motion that called for :
âhumans represent the most obscene, perverted, cruel, uncivilised and lethal species ever to inhabit the planet and looks forward to the day when the inevitable asteroid slams into the earth and wipes them out thus giving nature the opportunity to start again.â
Hmmn. Asteroids good. Nuclear weapons bad.
You can forgive the geriatric old duffer forgetting well known songs too, old peoples homes round the country have those bouncing balls bobbing up and down on the words to help Doris and Fred remember lyrics; did nobody think to do that to help the new leader of the Labour Party join in with the sing song at the Battle of Britain memorial service? The Guardian claimed he wasnât signing because he was a Republican â wishful thinking Iâm afraid, Jeremy likes to get his shekels on a regular basis.
And why not? Heâs used to a decent standard of living. I know he burbles on about austerity stalking the country, but that is no different to Grandma reminiscing about Turnip stew from her rocking chair whilst tucking into a Pepperoni with extra cheese crust. A bit hypocritical for the man who grew up in a Shropshire mansion and now lives in a leafy district of Islington alongside Boris Johnson, Paul Dacre and Kate Winslet â the Cripplegate report calculated that you needed an income of 90,000 a year to merely rent alongside these goliaths of âanti-austerityâ. Even his supporters, chucking rocks through the windows of Shoreditch cafes turn out to live in £600,000 apartments, er, funded by selling their Kennington flat to one of the â Kennington gentrifiers â.
So, heâs a hypocritical, arthritic-kneed, memory-challenged old duffer, who remembers to buy his vests on Islington market, but forgets when he lambasts the Queen for ânot writing her own speechesâ that he not only doesnât write his own speeches, but doesnât credit the humble blogger who had offered his model speech to every Labour leader since old windbag Kinnock to no avail…until Jeremy woke up one day and realised that he had been recast as Chance the Gardener and had to say something.
Funnily enough, there was a character called âWatsonâ in that film who was obsessed with Chanceâs sex life and started asking awkward questions…
But for now people are asking him serious questions like âWhat about the nuclear deterrentâ â rise up fellow bloggers! Jeremy doesnât know â heâs waiting for one of us to write his next speech…remember using asteroids is OK.