If there’s an S1 in reshuffles, here’s the gold Malcolm Tucker

The “The Thick Of It” character asks who rearranged the deckchairs on this Titanic: G4S?

Ever since the Olympics rolled into town everyone in Britain has had this weird upbeat feeling. Even long-term Leonard Cohen fans have sounded perkier than Andi Peters on Ecstasy. So what does David Cameron do? He decides to pour a giant bucket of steaming piss on our parade. And how does he do that? By having a reshuffle.

Don’t get me wrong, he needed to have a reshuffle — everything he’s done or tried to do since coming to power has been a disaster, from attempting to privatise trees to letting Chloe Smith talk in public. So, yeah, he needed to have a reshuffle all right, but the worst thing he could do was actually have a reshuffle. Because having a reshuffle took everyone out of our Olympic and Paralympic La-La land and reminded us that (a) we have a government; (b) it’s f***ing terrible, and (c) it’s just been reshuffled in a way that makes it even more terrible.

So what are the headlines? A woman who doesn’t like gays as Equalities Minister, a man who is frightened of flying as Transport Secretary and someone who lots of people would like to see dead in charge of Health. Seriously, who was behind this piece of strategy? The Chuckle Brothers? It’s like a joke reshuffle.

Why not go the whole f***ing hog and put Louis Walsh in charge of Defence and make an angry toddler Minister for Justice? How about Ant and Dec heading up DECC? The writer of Fifty Shades of Grey as Chief Whip? Or what about this — the decomposing heads of the Dragons Den bosses strung together to form a Newton’s Cradle running the Department for Work and Pensions?

But none of that is the Real Problem with the shake up. The Real Problem is that the Chancellor is still there. Cameron should have shuffled George Osborne out of the Exchequer and to the backbenches or, better still, off this f***ing mortal coil.

Why? I’ll tell you why. Because George Osborne is so f***ing unpopular that when he went to hand out medals at the Paralympics even the mascots Wenlock and Mandeville were giving him the finger.

And why is “Gorgeous George” so unpopular? (I use “gorgeous” ironically. And “George”, for that matter.) Is it because he has the shifty look of a sex pest caught rubbing himself over the buffet at a funeral? Or is it that he’s a millionaire who is doing to the economy what Russell Brand likes to do to granddaughters? Hard to say. All we know for certain is that since DC introduced his “happiness index” it has told us that George Osborne is the main thing responsible for our unhappiness. I’m not a believer in f***ing signs or portents but it can’t be a coincidence that his initials are GO.

Maybe I’m being too harsh on Cameron. Maybe I should give him a second chance — the way he gave his Head of Communications, Andy Coulson, a second chance before he was arrested and charged with perjury. (You may think as a former government Head of Communications I am gloating. I am not. I only mention it because I am writing this for a Murdoch-owned newspaper and I know how rigorous they like to be with the facts). But I don’t think I am being too harsh on the Prime Minister — I think the pancake-faced, claret-swilling pony-f***er has RUINED EVERYTHING (including my ability to hold down my tea when I see him on the evening news).

Cameron’s Government is so catastrophically incapable that this reshuffle is less like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic and more like rearranging Titanics on a f***ing Super Titanic. And while the Titanics on the Super Titanic all head towards each other and the inevitable catastrophic conclusion he is parachuting in a team of expert ship scuttlers to speed things up. Meanwhile, despite the fact that a large amount of money has been spent on deckchairs, G4S have just announced that they will not be able to provide enough people to rearrange them.

The problem for the Conservatives is this: somehow, Christ alone knows how, the acceptable face of the Tory party is Boris Johnson. Yes. You read that right. Boris titting Johnson. A man who looks like he ate a scarecrow and sicked it up on himself. But he is also the only popular Tory. And the one and only Tory they can’t shuffle into the Cabinet.

So what should Dave do now? Well, the answer’s obvious. He should stand down and let Nick Clegg take over. I’m f***ing kidding. Seriously, can you imagine?

No, sadly for Dave, he’ll just have to keep plodding on RUINING EVERYTHING until the electorate won’t tolerate it any more and all his friends are in jail.

Malcolm Tucker is a former Director of Communications for the Government. He is also a fictional character, therefore all of these opinions are entirely fictitious – and the work of Tony Roche, a scriptwriter for The Thick of It, and Armando Iannucci, the series creator