The UK’s Most Pointless Politician

Now regularly televised by BBC3.142, these days the title of The UK’s Most Pointless Politician is a hotly contested field. In fact, such is the competition for the title that the award has – over the last few contests become divided into several categories. This enables the judges have some chance of picking winners – or more accurately in the spirit of the competition – losers.

Obviously, the UK has a long and distinguished history of championing the useless and pointless. Hence the undercurrents of national suspicion and unease whenever a British person is good at something, especially sport.

For, as every British school-age potential worker drone is well aware winning is for losers.

Consequently, there are categories for both local and national politicians. There are also several categories for the political camp followers, groupies and other ‘professions’ of questionable value and limited virtue, such as political journalist, think-tank wonk and political researcher. There is, of course, as traditional, a category all of its own for civil servants.

The contest has several rounds, based on the old beauty contest model. In the first round, politicians are judged on their general incompetence, including an interview with the celebrity compere where they can detail their failures. This includes such things as failed business or academic career, their failed marriages and destroyed personal relationships and other such signs of general failure that left them with no alternative but to become politicians. Then there is the venality round where politicians must display just how corruptible they are. They are offered everything from a plain brown envelope stuffed with fivers up to executive board membership of companies guilty of supplying illegal chemical weaponry to despotic regimes. In the final round they are offered a seat at the cabinet table in return for their compliant acquiescence to the party machine.

Then, of course, there is the swimsuit round….

Moving on….

The winner of The UK’s Most Pointless Politician, of course, gets to become Prime Minister of the UK for anything up to three parliamentary terms. If incompetent enough at this the ex-PM goes through to the World Championship and the chance of winning a coveted UN Special envoy to the Middle East position.