Wrong Side for a Street

There is more than one way to execute a rodentine maritime evacuation manoeuvre. One can charge crudely for the lifeboats, elbowing aside the women and children while trumpeting one's devotion to duty and humble pleasure in public service; or one can pull in one's scaly tail, dye one's fur a pleasanter shade, temporarily forego the perks that accrue to a messenger boy for the plague, and pretend to be a hamster. One or two staunch Conservatives have taken the latter course, including Brand Andy, the mayor of the West Midlands. Brand Andy describes himself as more of a businessman than a politician, presumably in order to differentiate himself from Fishy Rishi, whose business connections are purely marital and therefore nearly as negligible as his political skills. Brand Andy is also pushing himself as a rebellious sort who stands up to Westminster: a line also taken by my own soon-to-be-erstwhile expenses claimant, who trumpeted his independence from Westminster shortly before taking a job as a whip for the National Johnson. Brand Andy's defiance of Westminster has so far consisted of calmly accepting Fishy Rishi's cancelling of HS2, though whether he did so as a result of his political instincts or his commercial ones remains as yet unclear. For the moment Brand Andy and others are removing from their propaganda all mention of the party they proudly support, while hoping to crawl back into office on a delicate combination of personal charm and voter stupidity. If one didn't know better, one might think they had something to be embarrassed about.