Amina Taylor | Get the popcorn ready for the ultimate election show | News

They say “politics is show business for ugly people,” and if you’re a politics junkie like me, you can understand that, in a twisted sort of way, that makes sense. As a former entertainment correspondent and magazine editor, I spent over a decade caught up in the ups and downs of the latest celebrity shenanigans; the movers and shakers, those desperately clinging to the slippery pole of fame, and those catapulted into superstar status or destined for greatness.

If you look at the current state of British politics, it is the equivalent of a huge drama with life-changing twists and cast reshuffles. In the wider British landscape, it is not awards but political decisions that take centre stage, and who doesn’t love a good early election because of the surprise release of an album (think Cowboy Carterbut instead of country music by Beyoncé, the Tory remix features Prime Minister Sunak, who is calling for early elections in the country)?

If, like so many of us, you’re disillusioned with politics (and politicians) in general and want to throw everything into a pot and then happily roll it out to sea, you’re not alone. However, if there was ever a time to experience things in a way that was both dramatic and meaningful, then the 2024 UK election would be a good place to start. The last time there was a change of Prime Minister, my mortgages shot up and the cost of living soared, so imagine what’s at stake in this episode.

When Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a general election on May 22, even members of his own party were caught off guard. Many of us political “old hands” thought an autumn election was possible. That would give the under-fire Sunak some breathing room and the Tories time to show the economy is not in free fall. More time would allow Britain to extricate itself from some of its foreign policy mishaps. With Labour leading by over 20 points in some polls, extra room to manoeuvre would narrow that gap – somehow.

WORST REPRESENTATION

Like any good soap opera, the writers at Tory HQ have decided there’s going to be a major plot twist. July 4th is now the date. Get your photo ID ready and get out there. It’s like voting on Britain’s Got Talent, only without the Botox… and sometimes without the “talent.”

Perhaps it would have been wiser for Sunak to have waited a little longer before launching the electoral grenade, as a recent Savanta poll showed a gap of 25 percentage points between Labour and the Tories, with some even predicting an “electoral defeat” for the Conservatives.

And to rub salt into the Tories’ gaping wounds, some polls actually put Nigel Farage’s Reform Party (also known as UKIP, Brexit Party, etc.) ahead of the Tories, making it the potential opposition. With Sunak lacking the energy to lead the party he now leads, the party he may lead could end up with just 72 MPs out of 650 in the House of Commons – its worst result in 200 years.

For a variety of reasons, but I would argue that the expectation of electoral defeat is the main one, 75 Tory politicians have indicated they will not stand for re-election. They include the Tory “big beasts”: former Liz Truss supporter and Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng; ex-Prime Minister Theresa May and former power broker Michael Gove (I may have made that title up) and the soft-spoken former MP for Windsor Adam Afriyie are also quitting.

Some of these heavyweights, who resigned before being summarily rejected by the electorate, have denied me that Portillo moment – named after former Conservative minister Michael Portillo, who lost his seat in dramatic fashion to a Labour upstart at the 1997 election. His defeat added a new term to the political vocabulary: “doing a Portillo” or “having a radical ‘reversal of fortune'”. One day you’re a future Prime Minister, the next you’re on TV waxing lyrical about the joys of the railway.

TOP OF THE FLOPS

There are a few “big beasts” I hope will be defeated on election night. Pollsters have highlighted 15 senior Conservatives, including ministers and foreign secretaries, but these are just my picks for the “top of the flops”.

1. Jacob Rees-Mogg. Representing North East Somerset since 2010, defending a majority of 14,729 votes. Seeing the smug grin disappear from his face in the early hours of July 5 is enough to keep me awake with coffee and snacks.

2. Jeremy Hunt’s social media presence shows he is conscious of his seat and is putting pressure on the local MP by any means possible. The former health secretary, chancellor of the exchequer and Tory leadership candidate could be riding off into the political sunset.

3. James Cleverly is fighting for his political survival here, despite defending a normally unassailable majority of 25,000 votes. Cleverly may find that the good people of Braintree are in no mood to reward mediocre ministers. Never before have a politician’s surname and reputation been so at odds.

4. Grant Shapps is running a real ‘squeaky bum’ campaign, with a huge target on his back. The parliamentary chameleon was once so brutally dismissed by football legend Gary Lineker that I had to repeat it here: “A bit much for someone who can’t even remember a name. 4 lads, Shapps.” Ouch.

5. It’s hard to choose between Penny Mordaunt and her party colleague Iain Duncan Smith as they face different challenges and are both serious Labour targets in their constituencies. Don’t be surprised if they’ve already secured media agents ahead of their new TV careers.

This election will be the ultimate spectacle, the results of which could literally be a matter of life and death for many. It’s not a foregone conclusion that Britain will wake up on July 5 to the news that we’ve replaced one Conservative government with another, with little difference in policy approaches between them, but it looks like a good bet. An overwhelming Labour government will have its own problems, and I’m happy to explore those in more detail in a future article.

In the meantime, one can take comfort in the fact that despite the predictability of the political script, there are still some disruptive factors to come, including smaller parties making their mark; independents championing issues often ignored by the ‘big two’; and a more attentive electorate keen to publicly status quo. Please join me on election night by grabbing some popcorn and some assorted snacks. If you’re drinking, man, get your shots ready and knock one back for every big name who loses their seat and get ready for Britain: The Sequel.

Amina Taylor is a journalist and broadcaster. She is the former editor of Proud Magazine and works as a producer, presenter and correspondent at Press TV in London.