Whoever wins this election, the nation may wake on Friday feeling as if we have all been knocking back Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters in the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Douglas Adams described this notorious cocktail as the alcoholic equivalent of a mugging — “expensive and bad for the head” — and said that drinking it was like “having your brain smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick”. Almost as painful as a Diane Abbott interview.
I mention the cocktail because Boris Johnson yesterday compared Jeremy Corbyn and his allies to the drink’s inventor, the double-headed, triple-armed rogue in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, only with a 50 per cent bonus in skullage. A coalition of Mr Corbyn, Tim Farron and Nicola Sturgeon would be, the foreign secretary told a rally in Co Durham, “a tricephalous monster: Zaphod Beeblebrox with an extra head”.
The 50 pensioners there smiled kindly, perhaps not quite getting the cultural reference. This may have been the first time anyone had said “tricephalous” in Shildon Civic Hall. Mr Johnson added that the “London loony left” would be treated “like a family of herbivores at the lions’ watering hole” if they went near the Brexit negotiating table.
A morning with Mr Johnson makes a refreshing change from the gloomy Theresa May, a moaning Marvin if ever there was one, but the comparison to Beeblebrox does not quite stand up. If there is any politician like the narcissistic Zaphod, it is surely Mr Johnson himself. There’s always a risk that he might destroy the planet, but at least we would go with our vocabulary expanded.
He was briefly president of the galaxy (Zaphod, not Boris, except when daydreaming at the Foreign Office), a powerless role that Adams defined as requiring the incumbent to attract attention so that no one wonders who is really in charge. That figures. A girlfriend described him as an amazingly clever man who pretends to be stupid, preferring people to be “puzzled rather than contemptuous”. Again, I’m referring to Zaphod. I think.
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Anyway, there he was in the Bishop Auckland constituency, a Labour seat for 95 of the past 99 years with a majority of 3,500. Win this and the Tories are on course for a majority of 100. Mrs May was visiting other ambitious target seats. Mr Corbyn, however, closed the day at a rally in Birmingham Ladywood (Labour majority: 22,000), displaying almost as much intent to reach beyond his base as when he ended the EU referendum campaign with a rally outside the Waitrose by the offices of The Guardian.
His hair more tidy than usual, save for a curl that flopped over his right eye, Mr Johnson wanted to talk about the glorious future that lies ahead since Britain “astounded the world” and voted to leave the EU. We would become a great trading nation again and the East India Club would get a second billiard room. “It is time to lift our eyes to a wider horizon,” he said. All that stands in the way of this Elysium is people voting for Labour. “Young people today,” he sighed, shaking his head.
Then, realising he may appear young to this audience, he squeaked: “I’m 52! I remember nationalisation and communism. We don’t want it back.” Otherwise, like another Adams character, accountants may advise their clients to spend a year dead for tax purposes.