Part 2 of my 2015 Election Wacky Races. Part 1 is here.

This week, with Ed Millipede, amazingly, one point in the lead, the four front-runners take a pit stop and take part in Question Time.

Question Time with Jonathan Dimbleby this week is from King’s College Hospital London and we are discussing the way the NHS has changed under the present Conservative Government; in particular how cuts are affecting the health of patients. We are very lucky to have with us all the current main four Party leaders.

And first I would like to go to David Caravan and ask him whether he thinks his Party’s cuts have gone too far.

David Caravan: Actually, no, I don’t think they have. While I do see, of course, that the tightening of our medical belts – or is that gastric belts, ha! ha! – might represent a challenge to the 20 million odd OAPs, who we are planning to ban from the NHS – oo sorry, George told me not to tell you that – I don’t think for most hard-working people with two legs and two arms, it is a problem. You can still cut off the head of the beast, the NHS beast, and have it function normally. In fact, that is half the problem. It is like a Cerberus. You just can’t kill it! In fact, I think there might be an argument, if the research were done and if it proved feasible, and if trials on children are successful, that we might envisage a situation where working people – patients – might actually not need their heads any more, as such. (Holds his hands up). Now, I know what you are thinking. But a simple medical procedure to painlessly remove the said thinking container would be simple, cheap and effective. There would no longer be a need to feed patients, and the Workers – sorry the hard-workers of this Country, won’t need to think anymore. Indeed, they won’t be able to. This will make Politics and Ruling the Country a whole lot simpler.

Jonathan Dimbleby: Thank you David. A controversial view, I expect. Now to Nick Clegg. Nick?

Nick Pleb: Does anybody remember Windmill in Old Amsterdam by Max Bygraves? ‘I saw a mouse. Where? There on the stair…’ Ah those were the good times… I sometimes wish we could return to the times when things were simple. When I could go to bed at night with a dry handkerchief. Lord knows, my laundry bill is an Expenses scandal. As are my wife’s therapist charges! Now, if I were a politician… Oh, I am. Damn.

Jonathan Dimbleby: Nick? Is that it? Okay, now to Ed:

Ed Millipede: Thank you Jonathan. I, too, suggest deep and sweeping reforms of the NHS. Only last week, I was visiting one of my distant relatives in Leeds Infirmary when I saw a nurse telling a male patient of mature years that he would have to pay extra for something she called a bit of ‘slap and tickle.’ Now, I’m not sure what that is exactly but when I was a wee lad on the moors of… Primrose Hill, we talked about ‘bubble and squeak’ all the time and if it’s anything like that, then I don’t see why anybody should have to pay extra. I told my wife this the other day and she nearly choked on her Brussels sprouts. Any man, or woman, of any age, who wants to vary their NHS diet shouldn’t have to pay extra for it, unless of course it’s caviar. No. And another thing, why should thermometers be calibrated in Centigrades? This is meaningless to our friends from the United States of American, Bahamas, Belize and the Cayman Islands. It’s a nonsense. No, BIG IDEAS for a BIG SHINY NEW NHS! That is what I want!

Jonathan Dimbleby: Thank you Ed. Now, lastly, but not least, over to Nigel:

Nigel Mirage: Thank you Jonathan. I would like to pick up on two of Ed’s points. First, he makes a very good point about Brussels Sprouts, although he does rather miss the nuance of what the patient wanted. I propose that all NHS menu’s should be swept clean of anything that smacks of Foreign Lands. I have nothing against such places, we all need them for two weeks each year, when we want to lie on beaches or walk the dusty markets of places like Cairo or Dubai. I am not against the odd bargain goatskin purse or hand-tooled ivory cigar lighter. I don’t even mind German beer, once in a while. But we should not allow anything like Brussels sprouts, Piri Piri Chicken, samosas, guacamole or bananas. The only fruit eaten in our house is Cox’s Pippin apples and Kent-grown strawberries. If I had my way, we wouldn’t even have Yorkshire Pudding. Quite apart from the fact that the pudding was probably originally French, Yorkshire is too… foreign for my liking! Good gracious me, look at all the cavorting that went on in Wuthering Heights, that book by a local heathen girl! Mind you, there were some nice wines drunk by Heathcliff, if I remember correctly… No, ban Yorkshire and probably Norfolk as well, Cut them off and let them drift away.

Jonathan Dimbleby: And what about your Huguenot ancestors, Nigel? They were French. So you are partly French.

Nigel Mirage: My wife is German. And that’s why I make her pay one third of my taxes for me. I have my own private way of punishing myself. I can’t speak about it openly but it involves very tight garters and prohibition, once per week for two hours.

Jonathan Dimbleby: Thank you all very much. And to our audience, good night!

• LAZLO FERRAN
• SOCIAL COMMENTATOR