From mid-July World Wrestling Entertainment’s Vince McMahon will work alongside the Downing Street press office, bringing all the machismo and one- liners he can carry with him.
‘There is a lot of work to be done,’ McMahon explains. ‘Politics is getting soft. Once I’m through, Dave [Cameron] won’t be taking any sass at PMQs. Tricky policy question from Ed Miliband? Dave will cross the floor, stand an inch from Ed’s face, and, nostrils flaring, grunt something like “why don’t you get back to your Atari 2600, Sillyband?”’
McMahon also hinted that the public could expect to see carefully staged sur- prise ‘legislation invasions’, in which former heavyweight parliamentarians storm into the Commons and scatter pol- icy proposals onto the floor.
In the words of Lord Prescott, such distractions are thought to facilitate ‘actu- ally bloody running the coun- try for a change, and it must be stopped. Just think what Thatcher could have done if no one had noticed the things that she was doing. Terrifying.’
Elaborately manufac- tured storylines will include a backbench revolt; a Hague related farming fiasco, and a live civil partnership cer- emony between Theresa May and Lynne Featherstone.
In his new book Selling Shite with a Smile: How we Lied Using Words, Labour PR bigwig Alistair Campbell notes that ‘when Gordon was in charge, David had no interest in going toe-to-toe. Gordon could have him, and they both knew it. I recall one occasion when Gor- don, flanked by John Prescott and Ed Balls, walked straight up to David after PMQs and knocked a pile of papers right out of his hand. No one could believe it! Still, that was Gor- don for you, he hated paper.’
McMahon declined to speak to The Cheese Grater but a spokesperson asked if we could smell what he was cooking.