If I was Lloyd Webber I would bring back Sunset Boulevard for a brief West End run. And if I was the government chief whip I would require that every Tory MP went to see it provided they didn’t appear in front of the cameras and say that ‘there are lessons to be learned.’ Because there are.

I am not suggesting that May has just buried her pet monkey (Bozo is still alive after all), shot her screenwriter lover and is just about to be arrested for his murder. But there are resonances with Norma Desmond, once a Hollywood silent screen goddess whose career was destroyed when the public first heard her voice rather than be bewitched by the flash of her eyes and seduced by the warmth of her smile. Well, alright, then let’s skip the smile bit. Norma was delusional and believed that a return to the silver screen was inevitable. Everyone knew that she was doomed but when she went to visit her old studio she was shown nothing but embarrassed deference for the star that she once was. Nobody had the heart to tell her the truth.

May has murdered the Conservative party. The brand has been trashed and nobody has a clue what it stands for. And the police in the form of the Cabinet are on their way. Only the most devoted and worshipping fans really believed that Miss Desmond would really make a comeback and and transport them back into a sepia past that could never return. And when asked about a comeback she regally hissed, ‘comeback? I have never been away.’

There are a number of headlines that politicians dread. ‘Stricken, dead in the water, fight back, re launch.’ Well, we have had all of these and this morning’s offering is that she is ‘going to be bold’. Now that should send a shiver down your spine. The right wing press lauded her Titanic manifesto as bold. Next we will hear that she is spending the the recess walking in the Welsh hills with Philip. Now that should scare the shit out of everybody.

You know things are bad when Andrea Loathesome, who is being tutored how to walk talk and breathe all at the same time (it’s not going well) demanded that she be either Home or Foreign Secretary. Normally, this would have people wetting themselves with derision at Number 10 rather than sitting up and listening. But that’s just a comedy side show. The real Broadway production will be the tragi comic musical Springtime with Brexit, broadly based on the Producers where a cynical impresario sets out to put together the most awful, bad taste and unworkable show designed to fail.

But you know things are really bad when professional psychopath and architect of the Brexit win, Dominic Cummings, admits that he may have made a terrible mistake. You don’t say. And you can’t run a negotiation when all your your negotiators are singing from different hymn sheets. The Tories have got to act quickly. It’s careless to wreck your party but unforgivable to wreck your country. Sadly, the Tories are pretty gutless. If May really wants to be bold she should announce her resignation until a new leader if found before the party conference. Then our country might just have a chance of escaping economic oblivion.

But Labour is not much better. They may be bad butchers but they have a terrible history of Stalinist purges. Decent moderate MPs will be deselected within a few months. They know it, but just don’t want to believe it. Somehow it will all get better. No it bloody won’t. Unless you guys form a new party Labour is dead as a movement rooted in Parliamentary democracy. And that is bloody scary.

So if you think the Tories have a resonance with Sunset Boulevard then Labour is very much akin to Sweeney Todd. John McDonnell is cutting the throats of those in the barber’s chair and Diane Abbott is downstairs making the pies.

God help us all. Politicians wake up.