Jeremy Corbyn,
Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition
House of Commons
Palace of Westminster,
City of Westminster
Dear Jeremy,
If the rumours in the hated mainstream media are to be believed, you will soon be seeking a replacement for your strategic support Seumas Milne to work with you towards the realisation of the Project. There is much to mourn in the departure of Seumas:
- Irrespective of the obvious inevitability of some political objective’s failure, Seumas never sought to dissuade you or redirect your political energies to things the doubters suggested, like policy development, consultation or communication with anyone outside the party.
- Even during the most tense crises, Seumas kept his glowering, deeply unsettling presence at the edge of meetings, coldly appraising the utterances all around you and making dissenters less likely to give their distracting ‘thoughts’.
- Seumas, as was well known outside the office, did not eat or drink; the times when he appeared to do either were carefully choreographed efforts to put people at extreme unease, as his slow, methodical faux chewing or sipping were carefully developed efforts to make people consider whether their own consumption of food was bourgeois and self-indulgent.
- He could see in the dark and wore ‘wheelie’ shoes so he appeared to glide about the office, to suddenly appear behind and scare the living fuck out of staffers.
Whilst it would be churlish to claim I can live up to the bounty brought to the party by Seumas Milne, I believe I have some qualifications which could have benefits for your new dispensation on leadership.
- I am almost always extremely angry. Not your run-of-the-mill, confused anger. The kind of anger normally occasioned by someone borrowing but not replacing one’s screwdriver, or a plug that won’t quite go in even though you’ve found the earth-socket with your finger before trying to line it up, or the bourgeoisie controlling the means of production even though you’ve written columns detailing how this order is inevitably doomed. The impotent, all-consuming rage I harbour almost always makes me worry that I will end up killing someone or wetting myself, or both.
- When I am not experiencing my daily paroxysms of debilitating anger, I tend to relax with a glowering, brooding, dark malevolent presence which lingers long after I have left a room. My joyless, energy sapping demeanour, whilst it is nowhere near as personally scary as my default state, is still pretty troubling for all those around me. This seems to me in keeping with the tone you have set over the last twelve months, and is effortless for me. If there are still people in HQ needing their spirits crushed, I am just the person to do it.
- I am the opposite of a populist. I actively seek out popular opinions and, in detail, seek to tear these things apart. In recent times I have written articles warning against the petty bourgeois activity of breast-feeding, the risk to national production of an educated workforce and how awful sugar is. These are just examples, of course. I can also write stuff praising quasi-socialist dictators, ideological demagogues and opinion pieces blatantly misrepresenting my own position for the purposes of obfuscating an entirely accurate complaint against me. It’s possible you’ll have more use for these skills.
- I have perfected a smile of disapprobation. This is an upgrade on Seumas’ tendency to simply sit entirely still and suddenly exit the room without anyone noticing him standing up, and is twice as creepy.
In short, Jeremy, I am exactly the sort of unhinged lunatic your campaign needs now to recover from the loss of Seumas Milne. My general creepiness and the majesty of my silent, dark spectre cannot fail to keep your headquarters operation in a state of chaos and suspended animation, just how you like it.
Give it some thought. No need to give me a ring. Just think about me twice and I will be right behind you.
Ben Archibald
