Spittle is the only thing Labour has left

I have started salivating excessively at night. I wake each morning in a pillowed swamp of my own effluvium, a noisome pond which is — I suspect — redolent of rapidly approaching death. I have done the hypochondriac thing and googled the possible causes and there’s a whole bunch of stuff — pancreatitis, close exposure to ionising radiation, rabies, pregnancy, serotonin disease and liver failure, to name but a few. My suspicion is it’s either rabies or pregnancy because I exhibit other symptoms common to both conditions, according to the internet. I cannot abide drinking water, for example, which suggests that I might be hydrophobic, a key indicator of rabies. And when I see Fergal Keane, surrounded by Syrian ‘refugees’ — a putative brain surgeon here, a cheerful transgendered cripple there — emoting himself senseless on the News at Ten, I begin to froth at the mouth and yap furiously, incoherently enraged. That’s rabies, isn’t it?

On the other hand, I have put on a little weight recently, which is inexplicable unless I am with child, for my diet and exercise regimen has remained the same. It may well be that I am in the same position as those cretinous women, usually from places like ‘Leeds’, who present at their local surgery complaining of stomach pains, unaware that they are eight-and-a-half months pregnant as a consequence of some hurried act of sexual intercourse with a fairly close relative. Either way I am obviously very worried, and so is my wife, who has to change the pillow cases every evening.

There are always upsides, however. Always a silver lining. Think positive, as they continually tell you, encouragingly, in places such as hospices. The good news for me is that my hyper-salivation came in incredibly useful this week when I was up in Manchester to protest at the Tory scum attending their annual conference.