Lstening in on the confidential hotline to help MPs and peers cope with their personal problems 

‘If you are wearing a suicide vest don’t press 1’: RICHARD LITTLEJOHN imagines a confidential hotline to help MPs and peers cope with their personal problems

Parliament is setting up a confidential telephone hotline to help MPs and peers cope with personal problems.

It will provide advice on matters affecting ‘work performance, health and well-being.’ Trained counsellors will be on standby 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The service will also be available to family members.

Westminster’s answer to the Samaritans should be fully operational soon. But a pilot scheme is already up and running. This column was invited to listen in . . .

Thank you for calling the personal crisis hotline. Calls are charged at 85p per minute and can be reclaimed on your parliamentary expenses. Please be advised that your call may be recorded for training purposes and passed to the Whips’ Office for use in a dirty dossier.

Richard Littlejohn imagines parliament is setting up a confidential hotline to help MPs and peers deal with their personal problems

Hello?

All our counsellors are currently busy dealing with other callers. You are being held in a queue. To better assist us in directing your call, please listen carefully to the following menu.

Hello?

For alcohol or other substance abuse problems, please press 1. For extra-marital affairs, press 2. If you are a Labour MP facing deselection by Momentum, press 3. If you want to drone on about Brexit, please hang up and call Nick Ferrari on LBC.

Hello?

Your call will be answered by the next available counsellor. If you don’t wish to hold and would like to book a face-to-face appointment, please visit our website.

Hello?

Thank you for holding. You’re through to Jason. I’m a trained counsellor. What should I call you?

Jeremy.

The hotline will provide advice on matters affecting ‘work performance, health and well-being’ (pictured, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn)

 OK, Jeremy. How can I help you? Do you have a drink problem? Don’t worry, it’s very common at Westminster.

No, nothing like that. I never touch a drop of alcohol.

What is the problem, then?

People keep picking on me, calling me an anti-Semite, even though I’ve spent my entire life fighting discrimination.

Why would they do that?

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I’ve no idea, as I was saying to my friends in Hamas and Hezbollah only the other day.

Do you think that might have something to do with it?

What?

The fact that you describe as ‘friends’ two terrorist organisations which want to wipe Jews off the face of the earth?

Why should it? My enemies keep taking everything out of context, like that time I was allegedly photographed holding a wreath at a ceremony to honour Palestinian freedom fighters murdered for resisting the Zionist entity.

Did you or didn’t you?

What?

Lay a wreath?

I was present when it was laid, but I don’t think I was actually involved in it.

You do understand, though, why some people might think you’re an anti-Semite?

That’s the trouble with Jews. They don’t get British irony.

I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do for you. Please don’t call again.

Trained counsellors will be on standby 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The service will also be available to family members (pictured, Theresa May leaves Downing Street earlier this year)

 (Click)

Hello?

Thank you for calling the personal crisis hotline. You’re through to Jason. What should I call you?

Um.

Don’t be shy. We can stick to first names, or you can use an alias if you wish.

I prefer ‘Prime Minister’.

Very well. What seems to be the trouble?

I’m in a very stressful job, trying to do my best for Britain, but people keep being horrid to me.

In what way?

They all say I’m a robot.

Why do you think that is?

I don’t know. It does not compute.

Is it because of the way you dance? Be honest, you did look a bit like Peter Crouch when you tried to throw a few shapes in Africa. We’re not talking Strictly here, are we?

That’s beside the point. I should be judged on what I do politically, not on how I shake my booty. I’m doing everything I can to ensure that Brexit means Brexit, but people are willing me to fail.

You have to expect that from the Opposition.

I’m not talking about the Opposition, I’m talking about my own MPs. Sometimes I wonder why I bother.

Have you ever thought about resigning and letting someone else have a go?

(Click)

Hello?

You’re through to Jason at the personal crisis hotline. To whom am I talking?

My name’s Marina.

Are you an MP, Marina?

No, but I’m married to an MP, quite a well-known MP, actually.

We’re here to help family members, too, Marina. What’s the problem?

He can’t keep it in his trousers, that’s the problem.

Boris Johnson (pictured) outside his Oxfordshire home after it was announced last week he is divorcing his wife Marina Wheeler

I hear what you say, Marina. There’s quite a lot of infidelity at Westminster, to tell the truth, what with the long hours, cheap booze, and hot and cold running researchers anxious to sleep with an MP to further their careers. It happens, but you really shouldn’t let one silly mistake ruin an otherwise happy marriage. Maybe you should give him a second chance.

Silly mistake? Second chance? I should have divorced him years ago. He’s a serial swordsman. He’s got a love-child by one of his mistresses, another had an abortion and a miscarriage . . .

When did you realise that he was so promiscuous, Marina?

I suppose it was when I started sleeping with him while he was still married to his first wife . . .

(Click)

Hello, hello?

Yes?

Is that you, Apple, my sweet little apple tarte tatin?

You’re through to the parliamentary personal problem hotline.

Right, yes. Oops! Never got the hang of these portable telephonic devices.

To whom am I talking? First names will do.

Er, Alexander, actually. But you can call me BoJo.

What can I do for you, Al, sorry, BoJo?

This is all in the strictest confidence, am I right?

Chatham House rules.

Splendid. Now look, old chap, BoJo’s got himself in a spot of choppy water, going over the side with a bit of rumpo not much older than his daughter.

Not sure the old pyramid of piffle gambit is going to do the trick this time.

Anyway, I’m worried this latest pilgrimage to Legovia might get in the way of the old masterplan, becoming World King.

I mean, the Maybot can’t be far off the knacker’s yard, can she? Not the way she was jitterbugging with the piccaninnies on the Dark Continent the other week.

Looked as if the circuit board was about to explode. She might as well strap on the suicide vest and get it over with.

What I was wondering is: if the old trouble and strife makes BoJo walk the plank, how’s it going to play in the shires with the Jam And Jerusalem brigade?

Am I still on for the grand Churchillian finale?

(Click)

Hello? Hello? Hello? Are you still there. . ?

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