Inject it in your veins... this is the Ozempic election, says Michael Booker

And this, inject it into your veins, is no exception.

You see, I was reading the NHS guidance on the problems caused by obesity.

And it struck me that, apart from the obvious size-related issues, there’s a few suffered by the current Conservative Party.

Here’s a few for starters - feeling isolated, low confidence and self-esteem and often feeling very tired.

Remind you of anyone?

I don’t know whether they’re also experiencing breathlessness and increased sweating, but it’s obvious that it’s a party close to needing life support in the polls.

But what else is on offer for voters?

In the olden days – I’m thinking of 1997 in particular – we’d replace an out-of-shape, depressed government with a snake-hipped, fully fit bunch full of new ideas.

But when many would-be voters look across the Commons for an alternative today, they don’t see too much of a choice.

That’s why turnout was so low at the local elections and could be even worse come the big show later this year.

I’m no George Galloway fan but he’s onto something with his mantra that our pair of major parties are ‘two cheeks of the same backside.’

(That said I’m never quite sure what he’s calling for unless it’s a quadrupled-cheeked Prime Minister and that would be costly for the taxpayer having to fork out for special new chairs in Downing Street.)

Anyway, I digress.

To many would-be voters Labour and their current policies are simply Tory-lite – a slimmed down version of the Conservative party after a shot of political Ozempic - or socialist semaglutide - if you prefer.

If you’ve taken in anything from the long-read writing, Samba-wearing, Substack-erarti media class recently you’ll know it’s odds on that Sir Keir Starmer’s team will be in Number 10 this time next year.

But like some weight loss jabs I hope it doesn’t prove just to be a quick solution that covers up the serious long-term political ill health facing Britain.

History usually shows there’s an unintended consequence whenever there’s a quick fix involved.

It was my first thought too when I saw the news, announced at the European Congress on Obesity in Venice, that trumpeted Ozempic as the key to cutting heart deaths by a fifth.

I tell a lie, it was my second thought.

My first thought was that it must be murder for delegates at mealtimes, lingering at the buffet trying to avoid the gaze of your lard-obsessed doctor mates tut-tutting at your plate filled by half-ton of tagliatelle.

My second thought, as it is with all drug breakthroughs, was it’s all well and good cheering a wonder jab that can save your life and leave you looking good in a pair of Speedo’s on holiday, but I do hope that doesn’t come at the cost of growing an extra head in five year’s time.

Likewise, the next election can’t be a quick-fix to the problems we face.

And we don’t want to be left with a patched-up Conservative government or a Labour party that’s just ‘Diet Tory’.

We need something bold, fresh, confident and new if we are to get to grip with growing social and political dangers at home and abroad.

We’ve got an ailing NHS, seemingly daily street protests, a transport system where it’s easier not to travel and an education system so up the spout that kids now take Fridays off because they are so de-motivated, they can’t even be bothered to go in and be cheeky to teachers.

We can’t even get Royal paintings right.

Recollections may vary as to what the artist who painted the first portrait of King Charles was originally briefed, but ‘Monarch emerging through a mist of blood on an afternoon’s visit to an abattoir’ appears to have been the message that got through.

Maybe it was the King’s sausage fingers that put him in mind of meat.

Meanwhile, as we flounder, Russia’s Putin and Xi’s China spy on us all through our phones, TVs and decadently western kettles waiting for a chance to strike.

And God help us if the war that’s been brewing for a while does actually start any time soon.

I’m not one to needlessly knock the next generation but I tell you the signs aren’t looking good.

If recent reports about plans for the end of term May Ball at Cambridge University are anything to go by, we can’t even party hard anymore.

The good old fashioned boozy day/night, pant-wetting blow-out of old, is no more.

Now there’s quiet rooms, warnings about ‘stressful’ firework displays, and personal evacuation plans.

The only ‘personal evacuation plans’ I remember on my last big night at Hull University back in the glorious 1990s involved making sure we were close to a toilet.

Anyway, you get my point, we have a few problems to solve.

And from what I can see, despite all the promises being rolled out by both major parties, there’s slim political pickings on offer.

And despite millions of us being hungry for change it seems to me there’s fat chance things are going to improve after Ozempic Election polling day.