Here is a mini-interview with the Tory politician Iain Duncan Smith about the soles of his shoes…
INTERVIEWER (possibly a mildly sceptical bald man in glasses): So Iain, the bottom seems to have fallen out of your shoes since the Brexit vote.
IDS: I am perfectly happy with the bottom falling out of my brogues. These shoes have been over-valued for far too long.
INTERVIEWER: But surely this is all the result of the policies your government has been following since Brexit. The soles of your shoes have been devalued by 18 per cent since the EU Referendum when measured against the soles of American trainers.
IDS: These are good English shoes and there is nothing wrong with the soles…
INTERVIEWER: But I can see your striped socks through the hole in the leather.
IDS: Nothing wrong with a bit of ventilation. That much-need hole in the bottom of my shoe lets out all the stale European air that has been stuck in there for far too long. It’s a good honest English hole in a good honest English shoe.
INTERVIEWER: But aren’t you at all worried about the alarming fall in the value of your shoes?
IDS: Not one bit. These remain robust shoes. These shoes are made for walking all over the world and that’s what they are gonna do.
INTERVIEWER: Look, your lot has engineered a double fall in the value of the shoe. The first drop in shoe stocks fell after the EU referendum and the second followed all that Hard Brexit rabble-rousing stuff at the Tory conference in Birmingham last week.
IDS: The fall in the value of shoe-leather is good for this country and…
INTERVIEWER: Sorry to interrupt (that’s a lie by the way), but this is an historic turnaround, as the Conservatives are meant to be the party of sound shoes, measuring the strength of shoe leather as a symbol of national virility. Now you are happy to see the value of shoe-leather collapse.
IDS (putting his feet up on the desk): I’ve told you already that British shoe leather has been over-valued for years.
INTERVIEWER: That hole in the underside of your shoe has got even bigger and now the striped sock has a hole in it too.
IDS: Two holes for the price of one – that’s the sort of value you get with the Conservatives.
At this point the studio door bursts open and a pair of leopard-skin kitten heels tap briskly into the room, with a prime minister attached.
IDS (quickly taking his feet off the desk): “Ah, Theresa. I was just putting this lefty interviewer to rights about how British shoe-leather has been over-valued for years and…”
TM (sits down and puts up her feet): “No holes in the soles of these beauties…”
INTERVIEWER: You know prime minister, it very much looks like there are…
TM: You weren’t listening. If I say there is no hole in my shoe, there is no hole in my shoe. Brexit means Brexit. Where there is discord we shall bring Harmony Hairspray…
IDS: I fear Theresa has gone on the blink.
TM: I am off to the cobblers…