By
’Tunji Ajibade
Labour Party headquaters
MP 1: Did you watch their meeting on TV?
MP 2: Meeting? No.
MP1: Um, sorry, I meant a conference, in Bournemouth. Supporters of Boris Johnson organized it.
MP2: Well, as a Member of Parliament, I’m busy, and I don’t need to be aware of things that don’t concern our party.
MP1: I’m aware, so you should too. We’re both Members of Parliament, but members of the Labour Party Strategy Planning Committee as well. What they do is our concern, in order to counter them.
MP2: If you say so.
MP1: I do, particularly as this concerns our arch-rival.
MP2: All Tories or the man in Number 10?
MP1: (with impatient gesture) Why do you talk like this? You know the only rival we have in all of the Conservative Party.
MP2: (shrugs) The Tories themselves have appropriately tagged him. You heard Jacob Rees Mogg on Sophie Ridge on Sunday, didn’t you?
MP1: (struggles to be calm) You know I’m not talking about him.
MP2: Who then are you talking about? He’s the man we have to contend with come 2024, and we know it.
MP1:This is the challenge I have with you. You’re a member of this committee but you don’t think strategically.
MP2: I beg your pardon.
MP1: Ok, sorry about that. It flew out, not meant to.
MP2 still looks wounded.
MP1: Sometimes, I feel we have leaks.
MP2: As in–
MP1: As in we have spies in this committee.
MP2: I’m sure you think I’m the one.
MP1: Don’t go that way.
MP2: You don’t trust me, you never did.
MP1: I never said that.
MP2: You don’t need to.
MP1: Well, it’s just that we suffer too many blows of late, take for instance the leaks that got to the Doha-based news channel about us.
MP2: Why should that be my worry?
MP1: (stares at MP2) You are a member of the–
MP2: And you don’t need to remind me for the seven-hundredth time.
MP1: I know.
MP2: So what do you suggest we do?
MP1: The reason I want to arrange an emergency meeting.
MP2: Emergency. We are doing fine. We just won the local council elections. The Tories are nervously biting their fingernails after that resounding–
MP1: I imagine one of them isn’t; he can’t.
MP2: Who?
MP1 stares at MP2.
MP2: Ok, ok, before you remind me I am member of the strategy planning committee. I suppose you are talking about the visit the man from Kyiv paid to the occupant of Number 10 lately.
MP1: What?
MP2: What, what?
MP1: Who made you a member of this–? O, never mind.
MP2: I do.
MP1: I suppose I have to cope with people like – Ah, I’m not meant to say that. Withdrawn.
MP2: Better.
MP1: You have something better to say?
MP2: You always do. No one else in this committee does. So say what is better.
MP1: The conference was a disaster on this side.
MP2: Conference?
MP1: The one CDO, Johnson’s supporters, had.
MP2: O, nothing concrete ever comes out of it.
MP1:This latest conference was to our hurt, I mean.
MP2: I don’t get you, we just won–
MP1: –the last local council elections.
MP2 stares at MP1, silently.
MP1: Did you listen to what they were saying?
MP2: I’ve not listened enough to Labour supporters; I’m to listen to the Tories who–
MP1 (looks exasperated) Who appoints people like– Well, guess I have to make do–
MP2: –you have to make do with what you have. Go on, I’ve heard you say it before. You know you’re the only person that plans here. Once any other person doesn’t see things as you see them they are dullards.
MP1: I never said that.
MP2: Sure, like you never said Good morning before.
MP1: You know, it was big trouble these people caused for us.
MP2: Which people?
MP1: Uh, never mind. Cabinet ministers spoke at the conference and later on TV shows. It was a disaster.
MP2: You said that last part before.
MP1: For our side. But the conference was in favour of Johnson.
MP2: It’s always in favour of Johnson.
MP1: I’m serious.
MP2: I’m too.
MP1: Braverman spoke, the former Home Department Minister.
MP2: Braverman always speaks.
MP1: She is of Johnson school.
MP2: You aren’t ever worried if they aren’t of Johnson school.
MP1: (stares at MP2, then shrugs) We have to strategise.
MP2: Over what this time?
MP1: About Labour Party’s Number One enemy, of course.
MP2: He’s not in Number 10 so I don’t see what your headache is.
MP1: He’s not, but you should know he is.
MP2: I don’t get you.
MP1: (throws his hands up) Maybe the man from Kyiv should come and replace some people in this Committee.
MP2: (looks wounded, shrugs) You’ll soon wish it is the leader in Moscow.
MP1: (impatiently) But, didn’t you see it?
MP2: What?
MP1: That the man from Kyiv knows who the man here is.
MP2: Yes, he knows; they met at the PM’s other residence that time.
MP1: (deflated) And you didn’t see the visitor’s body language?
MP2: Warm, it was warm.
MP1: What?
MP2: What?
MP1: You didn’t see how the man from Kyiv thanked the UK for its help to his country, but thanked the man in Number 10, placing emphasis on You in particular.
MP2: Of course, he was specially appreciating the number one man here.
MP1: (makes a face) You mean it didn’t occur to you that the visitor didn’t want to cause offence.
MP2: Offence? What offence?
MP1: Huh, of course you should know that any reference to UK’s help to Ukraine would automatically remind everyone watching of our Number One enemy, the man who first offered the help.
MP2 frowns.
MP1: It was the reason the man from Kyiv placed an emphasis on You. You didn’t read that, did you?
MP2: Read?
MP1: Of course, read the body language and dissect the words, the way they were spoken, the emphasis on them, and the gestures that accompanied them.
MP2 stares, and shrugs.
MP1:Those at the CDO gathering even said it more loudly.
MP2: That what?
MP1: That it’s about our Number One Enemy, not the man in Number 10.
MP2: I don’t get your point.
MP1: I don’t blame you, since you didn’t watch the CDO event in Bournemouth.
MP2: Reporters mentioned what transpired; everything that happened was for Tory members, of course.
MP1: (stares) Of course they are, but in favour of the man we don’t want them to talk about.
MP2: We know even the Tories have nothing elegant to say about him.
MP1 (bangs his fists on the table) The Tories at the CDO conference were saying great things about Johnson.
MP2: O, was he the one you were talking about?
MP1: For the sake of who else are we here? This is a man for whose sake all the Tory MPs who like him gathered in Bournemouth. Priti Patel, Nadine Dorries, Jacob Rees-Mogg, those usual Johnson die-hards.
MP2: Of course they would be there, every politician wants the youth at such a conference on their side.
MP1: (mimics) Every politician wants the youth at such a conference on their side. You mean you didn’t hear each of the prominent attendees sending messages that should get us concerned.
MP2: Concerned. The next election is for us to lose, everyone knows that.
MP1: And you didn’t realise we could have a difficult time that we imagined?
MP2: How?
MP1: (takes a deep breath) All the major MPs at Bournemouth have one dream.
MP2: It can’t materialize, we won the–
MP1: –the local council election. We did. But my job, our job, is to strategise to ensure we nip every potential problem in the bud.
MP2: There is no problem that I can see.
MP1: The reason I wonder what you are doing in this committee. So, you didn’t listen to Conor Burns, the local Tory MP who said the party owed Johnson a debt of gratitude for delivering Brexit.
MP2: I’ve told you, I didn’t watch the event.
MP1: You can at least imagine what he said, can’t you?
MP2: Must I?
MP1: And you can’t imagine what the Tory donor Peter Cruddas who accused all Tories of plotting secret meetings which led to Johnson being removed by MPs? He said the man in Number 10 is overseeing the reversal of the 2019 manifesto.
MP2: Of course, these are Tory members who would–
MP1: (releases loud air through his lips) So it doesn’t mean anything to you what these people are organizing?
MP2: They organize the conference to show their support to their party, naturally.
MP1: Even when they placed two boxes labelled “Team Boris” and “Team Rishi” outside the conference hall, and people who attended were encouraged to drop a ping-pong ball into each box to press home their point that they wanted Johnson back as party leader at the next opportunity?
MP2: What was the result? It wasn’t announced, was it?
MP1: (exasperated; gets up) Must it? The reason for the conference was clear. It was to promote our Number One Enemy, prepare him for a leadership challenge. And CDO is influential among the Tories, you know. When those MPs who attended spoke in the manner they did, they indicated they didn’t mind making life uncomfortable for the man in Number 10. And they can.
MP2: Let them try.
MP1: (stares) You are a hopeless case. They should try? They should, and if anything happens, we have back the same enemy I’ve worked all this while to put at a distance until 2024. (he storms out). You’re hopeless. Hopeless.
MP2: But Jacob Rees Mogg has said changing leadership now is –
