Kim Jong-May awkward and incredulous as journalist asks question | John Crace

Kim Jong-May clutched her left arm tightly. She was out of her comfort zone. Surely the whole point of being the Supreme Leader was not having to go on television to answer rude questions. Still, too late to back out now. She smiled awkwardly. It was always good to try to appear friendly towards one’s subjects.

“Don’t the voters deserve better than to be spoken to in soundbites?” asked Andrew Marr.

Don’t be silly. What this country needed above all were strong and stable soundbites. “I believe it is in the national interest to have a strong and stable leadership because only a strong and stable leadership can deliver a strong and stable economy.”

Marr reached for the pistol. Him or her? This wasn’t the interview he had been hoping for. It was the one he had feared. “That does sound rather robotic,” he observed. The Supreme Leader began to relax. Robotic was good. Robotic was strong and stable.

With the Maybot fully activated, the Supreme Leader went on to insist that she wanted nothing more than a country which worked for everyone and not just the privileged few. She’d said that hundreds of times before so it must be true. What about the nurses? Marr asked. They were poorer than they had been for years and many of them were going to foodbanks.

“There are complex reasons why people go to foodbanks,” the Supreme Leader said tetchily. And what people had to remember was that many nurses were just plain greedy and chose to scrounge off foodbanks when they had spent all their money on super-sized meals at McDonald’s.

Sensing she might be straying slightly off message, Kim Jong-May returned to her default settings. Strong and stable leadership. Strong economy. Strength through being strong. Security through being secure. No, she didn’t feel it would be a failure if inequality rose under her Supreme Leadership. And yes, she did want to reduce taxes, but the best way of ensuring she could do that would be to give herself the leeway to increase some of them. The power of dialectics. Stability through fragility. Integrity through deceit.

The Supreme Leader fidgeted and looked around anxiously, willing the interview to end. “Jean-Claude Juncker is reported as saying that you are in a different galaxy in the Brexit negotiations,” Marr remarked.

That was an insult too far for Kim Jong-May. Just because she was on another planet, it didn’t mean she was from another galaxy. She was very proud to be the Supreme Leader of the planet Zog. And what the people of planet Zog needed was strong and stable leadership, which is why they needed to give her a mandate to strengthen her hand in the Brexit negotiations. Once the EU realised how much everyone in the UK hated it, Brussels would be bound to give us a brilliant deal.

“Do you think gay sex is a … ”

The Supreme Leader had been expecting this one and she jumped in before Marr had finished his sentence. “NO, NO, NO.” She absolutely loved gay sex. Nobody liked gay sex more than she did. Nothing was more strong and stable than gay sex providing it was done strong and stably. To be on the safe side, she crossed herself. She could work out later whether it was more of a sin to say something wasn’t a sin when you thought it might be.

A few minutes later, the Supreme Leader found herself in the ITV studios being asked much the same questions by Robert Peston. Might as well kill two birds with one stone. Strong and stable, stable and strong. Strengthen our economy by strengthening her own position. Read her lips. She wouldn’t be raising any specific taxes. Though she might be raising some unspecific taxes which she wasn’t prepared to specify.

By now Kim Jong-May was displaying some nervous tics. Her eyes twitched as they darted in different directions and her fists clenched and unclenched. Desperation was kicking in. “One last question,” said Peston, thoughtfully opting to put the Supreme Leader and the country out of their misery. Why would she not be doing the live TV debates?

“Because I want to get out into the community to meet some ordinary people,” she replied. Why, only the previous day she had been up to a forest in Scotland where she had met this awfully nice woman, Ruth Davidson, along with seven of her closest friends, who had all told her that what this country needed was the strong and stable leadership which only someone as strong and stable as her could deliver.

On the way back to Number 10, the Supreme Leader asked the Even More Supreme Leader if he thought the morning had gone well. Lynton Crosby nodded approvingly. She had been more mediocre than even he had dared hope.