Walking with Tories

Ere, guv. Ow about we save ourselves some time and I just give you my CV now?

Tories are one of this country’s most fascinating indigenous species, their ruddy faces and pinstripe coats have become synonymous with England to the point where it’s hard to think of our sceptred isle without picturing the lovable creatures playfully vomiting outside wine bars or refusing you a bank loan.

Few people however, know much about this uniquely British species, a situation I’ve decided to remedy thus...


Walking with Tories: A ‘no one really likes Jazz’ Guide to your betters


Natural Habitat: Tories are found across the south of England though degrees of concentration are variable. To be sure of seeing Tories its best to go to one of England’s designated Tory reserves like Clapham, where, on a Saturday afternoon, you can expect to see herds of them sweeping majestically along Lendal Terrace.

Breeding: Like Pandas, Tories are very fussy breeders. Female Tories, for instance, cannot become impregnated unless they are situated within a house worth GBP £800,000 or above. The situation is further complicated by the fact that Male Tories tend to be fairly confused about the whole process of procreation with their wives, often believing sex to be something traditionally practiced with salaried employees or Eastern European teenagers.

Mercifully, once the conditions for spawning are perfectly balanced, actual coitus tends to be fairly straightforward... And brief.

Communication: Male Tories communicate via a system of nicknames, attempted puns and homosexual innuendos, known as ‘banter’. Be warned, approaching a Tory in mid banter is not advisable. A ‘banter’ conversation is likely to be highly tedious for a human being to endure since unlike ‘conversations’ they contain literally no information, often consisting of little more than empty bravado. Any human who enters into one is likely to leave with a piercing migraine and drastically revised views on the morality of genocide.

Female Tories, on the other hand, communicate in a highly sophisticated manner. Their interaction with each other consists of an intricate web of false compliments, conditional praise and air kisses. The only direct speech is delivered tacitly through intermediaries in a process known as ‘bitching.’

Although female Tories’ opinions of each other are uniformly negative, they are at pains to appear the best of friends at all times.

Watching a group of female Tories (or a ‘tosspuddle’ to use the correct term) communicate is one of the most baffling sights in nature. To date, no anthropologist has managed to fully comprehend or explain this impenetrable system of communication, though many have gone mad trying.

Tory stages of life

left to right
Top row: Toby, Camilla, Josh
Bottom Row: Flick, Henry, Suzannah

Infancy: In their youth Tories can be identified by expensive, arduously prepared plumage that somehow still ends up looking like backcombed straw. During this phase, male Tories can often be found wearing heavy gauge horizontally striped coats to make them look like big hard rugby playing boys, an effect spectacularly undermined by the designer logo on the left breast. ‘Jack Wills’ isn’t a rugby team, lads.

You know what, I'm not even going to make a joke.
This photo is too damn good.

Youth: Proper Tories attend either Oxford of Cambridge, though it is acceptable to go to St. Andrews, Durham, the London School of Economics and, if you absolutely must, York. However, attendees of these lesser four are required to remain bitter about the fact for the rest of their lives.

Whilst at university Tories, in spite of any prevailing fashion at the time, dress like they are acting out an Evelyn Waugh novel – see picture.

The purpose of university is to give Tories something to talk to each other about every single day until they die.

How fucking badass is the middle one?
You can just tell she's thinking, "I am going to fuck you bitches up at the bridge table later"

Middle age: Tories get married almost immediately upon leaving university and commence the aforementioned complex process of spawning. On their 35th birthdays, male Tories automatically lose all their hair and gain three stone, females instantly become their mothers and develop drinking habits that would be designated as ‘problems’ were they in a park drinking Special Brew instead of at home drinking 1995 Chateaux Margot.

I bet this is what David Cameron looks like pre make-up!

Old Age: By now most Tories have made the horrible realisation that their entire career in law, finance, politics, the civil service or ‘management consultancy*,’ achieved precisely nothing. They are therefore, fairly bitter. They grow ever more so as they reflect on a life of greed, self interest, xenophobia and passive aggression, whilst writing bilious letters to the Daily Telegraph.



* The modern equivalent of selling 'snake oil.'