Will someone tell MPS that politics is no laughing matter?

If our leaders can’t be serious now, the joke is on us

You can just imagine the meetings that took place in the run-up to Theresa May’s speech at conference. “We need to make the people laugh,” says adviser A, “because if they don’t laugh, they will cry.”

“We made them laugh last year,” points out adviser B, “when the set started to collapse shortly after a comedian ran on stage and handed the Prime Minister, who appeared to be suffering from consumption, her P45.”

“You make it sound so bad,” says adviser A, “but it’s not as if anyone died.”

“Is that how low the bar is set in politics nowadays? It’s a good day if nobody dies?”

“Now, listen, the point is that last year, everyone in the country was laughing at us. And this yea…”

“Everyone in every other country is laughing at us, too?”

“No! This year, we’re going to get everyone to laugh with us.”

“But what is there to laugh about?” asks adviser B. “The UK is about to leave the EU without a deal, the Northern Ireland peace process is at stake, and the cabinet is at war. I don’t see a great deal of amusing material to work with.”

“I was thinking more physical comedy,” says adviser A. “Everyone liked it when she danced in Africa. It passed the Turing test and made her seem human.”

“It did not pass the Turing test. It failed it.

She made C3PO look like Carlos Acosta.”

“It could at least get her a place in next year’s Strictly Come Dancing line-up Who’s laughing now? Theresa May danced on stage at the Tory party conference when this all, inevitably, comes crashing down around us.”

“Good point,” agrees adviser B. “We’ve got to be thinking longterm, after all.”

Here is that rare thing in modern Britain, something that I am sure we can all agree on, regardless of whether we voted to Leave or Remain: as things stand, Brexit is not funny. Not at all. The situation may appear ripe for laughs when viewed from within the Westminster bubble, where basic salaries are three times the UK average and career prospects are assured on the after-dinner speaking circuit or reality television shows. But outside of that, Brexit is an anxietyinducing subject that can seem as confusing as it is frightening. For most people, Chequers is shorthand only for the great big country house complete with swimming pool that the Prime Minister gets to live in when she’s not occupying a piece of prime real estate in central London. What is going on? Who, exactly, is in charge?

Comedy, as we all know, is subjective – something that may seem amusing to a hall full of people who happily queue for two hours to listen to Boris Johnson might not seem quite so funny if you are one of the thousands more who would rather chew off one of their own arms. Dancing on to stage to Abba probably felt like a good idea at party conference, where the demographic is about as reflective of the UK as the cantina scene in Star Wars, but to people watching at home, wondering how their futures are going to pan out post-march 2019, it looked a little like Nero fiddling while Rome burns.

And what are the point of party conferences nowadays? Are they really anything other than a way to provide lobbyists with even easier access to politicians, and the party faithful with even easier access to each other, via skinfuls of booze and late-night parties and hotel rooms away from prying eyes?

To most people, Conservative Party conference has about as much relevance to their daily lives as Paris Fashion Week, which takes place at the same time.

So you picked Westminster up and took it as far north as Birmingham. What do you want? A medal in the form of a souvenir fridge magnet, so you can prove to the people that you sometimes leave SW1?

Running through a field of wheat is definitely not the naughtiest thing that Boris Johnson has done, but it’s up there as one of the most puerile. Nobody is buying the line that Boris always runs through that field, most certainly not his bare legs, which would surely prefer the public bridleway to scratchy stalks of grain.

But both the running and dancing stunts are telling, in that they show us just how out of touch the main players are with the electorate. We do not know whether we are coming or going, and where we are going to be in six months time.

When it comes to Brexit, we are bewildered and baffled and tired. And we don’t want you to make light of that. We just want you to do your jobs and sort it out.