Farrukh Dhondy | Cosying up to Liz… To get a Cabinet job, or become a lord!

“Oh Bachchoo, we grow with fairy tales
Then some move on to hairy tales
Look around you, the world is scary tales
So Bachchoo broadcast your bewarey tales!”

— From Paoon Roti to Pavarotti, by Bachchoo

I used the phrase in my teenaged years to abuse people with whom I disagreed, but didn’t till later discover what “running dogs” meant. I had the same problem with “bandwagon”, but used Wikipedia to figure out what it meant.

Growing up in India, one saw, passing on the streets, several wedding parties and parades with bands leading them. These mobile ensembles, known as “naankhatai bands”, were perfectly turned out in pseudo-British military uniforms and walked along ahead of the wedding procession. There were no wagons onto which one could jump. But of course, one knows that in more affluent colonising Europe, the bands on a parade would not be taxed to walk.

Enough etymological trash — the bandwagon I want to jump on is the one that is currently parading through the streets, nooks and crannies, the hawks and Hearns of the United Kingdom touting for votes in the election to be the leader of the Tory Party and automatically the next Prime Minister of Britain.

This is a very popular bandwagon. You see, gentle reader, out of the eleven candidates who initially joined the race to offer themselves for this position, nine were eliminated by the Tory constitutional process and Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak were left standing and competing.

When they went head-to-head at first, I rejoiced because they seemed to so viciously attack each other that it was very likely that when one of them defeated the other there would be permanent warfare splitting the Tory Party. Alas! That now seems unlikely as Rishi is losing traction and Liz is almost certain, intellectually challenged though… (Oops! Sorry, omit that insight please — fd).

The reasons are four-fold. Rishi is seen as the architect of the crisis of the cost of living and the possible 13 per cent inflation that the UK is predicted to suffer. Second, he is a billionaire and so assumed to be out of touch with the woes and despair of ordinary people. Third, he is seen as a bit dodgy as he allowed his wife to go tax-free on her millions of unearned income from India as a tax-dodging “non-Dom” — someone who lives in the UK but registered themselves as not a domestic citizen. And fourth, of course, the conviction that Rishi was the Brutus who had stabbed Caesar BoJo.

So, Liz comes out top and almost all the candidates relegated in the race are now publicly declaring their bottom-licking support for Liz, hoping or calculating that when she becomes PM she will give them a ministerial job. Oh bandwagon! With the crowds jumping on you, save a little space for this elder of the British Asian community. People who were ideologically sceptical about our Liz are now begging for a job. Dare I say, “me too”?

Yes, gentle reader, this is where I come in. I am petitioning Liz as an ardent supporter and have even tweeted her to say that my tarot cards have pronounced her not simply a follower, but the reincarnation of Margaret Thatcher, Henry V, Winston Churchill, the Duke of Wellington, Florence Nightingale and Haile Selassie (Please check that last reference — Ed).

You see, gentle reader, offering my flattery to Liz Truss as twenty bum-licking Tory MPs are presently doing in hope of a Cabinet job, may at last fulfil my long-standing ambition to be a member of Britain’s House of Lords. I know a few Indians already there — Swaraj Paul, for services to Swaraj Paul; Karan Bilimoria, for selling Cobra beer which went bankrupt; and, of course, Meghnad Desai, who is actually, as an economist, a respectable and respected lord.

Now, if Jeremy Corbyn was in power, I had a chance to be ennobled and declare myself Lord Dhondy of Sachapir Street, or indeed of Sarbatwalla Chowk, Pune, because a dear left-wing friend of mine was asked by Corbyn’s chief henchman: “Is this fellow Dhondy with us?” I am certain the enquiry pertained to my ennoblement when Corbyn became king. Alas, it didn’t come to pass and I remained plain Mr Botany B.

And then this deluge of pledging support to Liz hit the headlines. Suck up and hope to advance is the Tory motto of the day. Which forces me to think what, apart from my flattery of her being the incarnation of the great Britons (But not Selassie, you idiot! — Ed… It will get the Rastafarians in, boss — fd); can I offer Liz to be accepted onto the bandwagon? I suppose I can say that as an elder of the Asian community I can offer spiritual guidance and free up her kundalini, or whatever it is that spiritual gurus do.

To tell you the truth, I don’t expect Liz Truss to be PM for more than a few months or till the next scheduled election which any Opposition to these Tory-conducted-crises of Britain will win. But, dear reader, lords are for life. So, Liz, this is a declaration that I am backing you — (and not) the hedge-funding Indian capitalist Rishi Sunak! (But this Truss is not much of a socialist herself — Ed… Relax yaar, when I am a lord, I will introduce you to Rupert Murdoch — fd).