Young Tory of the Year

	Stephen, in drag, is in a box at a concert hall, a packed house behind 
	him and an orchestra tuning up.


Stephen		Hello and three dozen welcomes to the Harrowgate Young Tory of 
		the Year, here at the Daily Mail Hall, Horrorgate, in front of
		an invited audience of local businessmen and their slightly
		awkward teenage children in pony-tails and annoying ties. With
		me is one of the judges, Brent Wheeler, and he'll be giving
		expert advice and telling us what to look out for. Good evening
		Brent.

Hugh		Quite right.

Stephen		Brent, the standard last year was incredibly high, do you think
		we can look for something similar this year?

Hugh		Well, Susan, I think we probably can. I've been a judge for
		some of the local heats and I can tell you the talent this year
		is as awesome as ever it's been.

Stephen		This being the night of the finals, the competitors will be
		concentrating on keynote speeches and displays of general
		prejudice and ignorance, is that right?

Hugh		More or less. There is a new round this year, however, a
		Getting Shiny-faced in a T-shirt round.

Stephen		T-shirt? That sounds very ...

Hugh		Well, this is the way modern Young Toryism is being developed.
		T-shirts show that it isn't just an art for the middle classes,
		but has general American street fashion-wise appeal for the
		young and hip-trendy.

Stephen		Right, well. The lights are going down behind me as you can
		probably hear, and our first competitor, Andrew Tredgold is
		ready to go on.

	Hugh, as a Young Tory, Andrew Tredgold, steps on to the stage with a 
	speech. There is a blue cyclorama behind him with a Union Jack-Arrow 
	logo and the slogan "Forward with into Britain tomorrow right step".

		(hushed voice) Andrew is in his second year at Exeter reading
		Human Bigotry and Libertarian Nonsense. He counts amongst his
		inspirations the "Family Values" theme by Kevin Patten, the
		"Further Cuts in Public Expenditure" suite by Kenneth Clarke,
		arranged Portillo, and the "Endless Variations in J. Major".
		So, Andrew Tredgold, South West regional winner.

	Hugh stands in front of those perspex autocue screens and clears his 
	throat. Stephen is the conductor, a la Simon Rattle. The orchestra 
	plays "I Vow to Thee my Country" underneath. Andrew watches nervously 
	as Stephen gives him a reassuring smile and then cues him.

Hugh		(as Andrew: becoming INCREDIBLY fast) Conference. Core values,
		real punishment for offenders, family standards, opportunity
		for individual enterprise, roll back the frontiers of the
		state, Michael's bold and imaginative initiative, and yes, why
		not corporal punishment, really crack down, young offenders,
		rules of law, and yes I make no apology, respect for ordinary
		decent vast majority, welfare spongers, as Norman said so
		clearly, individual enterprise culture, opportunity attack on
		trendy liberal educational wishy-washy to pick up on Kevin's
		wonderfully forceful point, sloppy thinking, sixties, in
		Michael's bold and imaginative values, standards, decency,
		family, law, yes. I make no apology and why not even perhaps,
		God and pride in country, decent ordinary sloppy people, vast
		majority of bold new initiatives, decent, family standards,
		core values, return to fifties, reponsibility, individual,
		respect, standard, values, and yes, why not, values, respect,
		standards, ordinary, decent apology, I make no standards, vast
		family law, and why not sloppy corporal God punishment
		individual decent spongers wishy-washy trendy family crime
		Michael values. Thank you.

	Huge applause.

Stephen		Well, the audience absolutely loving Andrew's performance
		there. But what will the judges make of it, I wonder? Brent.

Hugh		Well, it was wonderfully confident and assured, wasn't it?
		Original, though. I'm not sure how much the judges will like
		that. Did you notice in one of the earlier passages he opted
		for "family standards" instead of the more classically correct
		"family values"? But the technique was astonishing for one his
		age: he was every bit as insulting as a Tory twice his age.

Stephen		Any actual mistakes?

Hugh		Not real mistakes, no.

Stephen		I thought at one point that he was going to say something that
		made sense.

Hugh		He just managed to avoid that, didn't he? A tense moment. But,
		no. Very assured, very ghastly: completely sucked dry of youth,
		energy, ideals, imagination, love, passion or intelligence.

Stephen		Well, while the audience vomit we'll return you to the shop
		where we bought you.