When I tell people I’m about to do a standup tour, they’re often confused. Then I explain I advised the Labour party for the past 10 years and they totally get it because, let’s be honest, there’s barely a cigarette paper between politics and comedy these days. Even though I did standup back in the day, it’s the comeback no one really wanted – myself included. But this is what happens when you lose a general election. As with my old colleague Ed Balls, nowadays people pay money to come and laugh at us.
A big part of my show is telling people the story of how someone like me got close to the top of politics, and what I found when I got there. I’m the Glaswegian daughter of Muslim immigrants who had no political connections and who would have preferred me to become a proper doctor rather than a spin doctor.
I absolutely loved my job, but found there were a lot of people who looked the same, sounded the same, knew all the same people from university, shared the same view of the world and were mainly called Bob, Tom and Simon.
My show is about my journey in politics and coming to the realisation that although clever, posh, white chaps from the same social and family circles are all very nice (I’ve gone out with quite a lot of them), we really do need a wider range of human beings in charge of things.
And in post-Brexit Britain, that is all the more important. Whether you were remain or leave, there hasn’t exactly been a people’s revolution when it comes to power.
But fear not: I’m doing my bit to learn the lessons. Most shows start in the regions and end up in London, by which time they’re all slick, well practised and rehearsed. Not mine. I shall be kicking off my tour at the Soho Theatre and making sure those pesky London metropolitan elites bear the brunt of my shambolic first outings.
Ukip’s knightly clown show
Things in Labour may be bad, but the party looks like a Rolls-Royce compared with the never-ending clown show that is Ukip. It is quite an achievement to have major splits on immigration, which is your only policy, and threats of deselection in a party of one MP.
Douglas Carswell has achieved more than Nigel Farage and Paul Nuttall simply by getting elected. They now want to oust him for preventing Farage getting a knighthood – how’s that revolt against the stinking establishment going? Arise, Sir Douglas, I say, for that act alone.
Arron Banks the fruitpicker
I was on Radio 4’s Any Questions last Friday. John McDonnell and I clashed over Jeremy Corbyn, Ukip’s Arron Banks declared me “not funny” (that may go on the poster), and I shared a car home with Lord Lamont (those are words I never thought I would write). It was a feisty but fun evening, and the lovely staff of Edwinstree Middle School in Hertfordshire took rather good care of me.
Our final audience question had been whether we could eat the newly recommended 10 portions of fruit and vegetables a day. I explained that for me, being from Glasgow, that diet goal was highly unlikely unless it included onion rings. I fessed up that my reaction to the recent courgette crisis was that never had a food shortage affected me less.
On leaving, I was presented with a fruit bowl (as in a bowl full of real-life fruit) to take away with me by head of year Tony Galanides, who was concerned about my wellbeing on my upcoming tour. I was very moved by the gesture – until Banks stole my plum. Bloody Kippers, coming over here and stealing our fruit.
Ayesha Hazarika begins her State of the Nation tour at the Soho Theatre on 18 April
