The House of Commons was yesterday plunged into chaos when Prime Minister Boris Johnson exploded. The Tory leader had just risen to his feet to answer Labour leader Keir Starmer’s opening question at Prime Minister’s Questions – “Can the Honourable Member confirm that he is a fat useless tosser?” – when he was seen to start shuddering, with wisps of smoke appearing from under his collar. “He started to open his mouth when this strange look came over his face – then he just exploded,” recalls Labour back bencher Pete Dogger, who witnessed the event. “There was offal flying everywhere – Jacob Rees-Mogg had his top hat knocked off by a lump of it, while Johnson’s head ended u landing in Foreign Secretary Liz Truss’ lap. It was absolute chaos as everyone panicked and tried to get out of the Commons at once.” The initial suspicion was that the explosion was the result of terrorist activity, but the Metropolitan Police and Security Service have admitted that, after sifting through the wreckage, they could find no evidence of any kind of explosive device. “There’s been much speculation that it might have been some sort of spontaneous human combustion,” says Dogger. “He did seem to be sweating profusely just before he blew up, which might have been the result of some chemical reaction going on inside his body. Then again, it might just have been because he was a fat bastard.” Indeed, the Prime Minister’s weight has been suggested as a possible cause of the explosion, with speculation that he might have reached some kind of ‘critical mass’ of body weight, resulting in him spontaneously exploding.

Such explanations, however, have been dismissed by experts as being, at best, pseudo-science with no factual basis. Nonetheless, this hasn’t stopped even more bizarre theories being offered for the extraordinary demise of Boris Johnson. A still shocked Conservative Party has started to look within its own ranks for an explanation, with fingers being pointed both at rivals of the Premier within his cabinet, who coveted his position and his critics within the party. “There are rumblings within the Party that it could have been witchcraft that caused Johnson to explode,” confides Tory backbencher Rufus Finkel. “Some sort of powerful spell could have been cast on him by the miscreant. Consequently, the Party Whips have been looking very closely at TV footage of the moments before the explosion, trying to see if anyone on the front bench is making strange gestures or muttering incantations.” Unhappy with the slow progress of this enquiry, Jacob Rees-Mogg has launched his own investigation. “He’s swapped his top hat for a puritan hat and has taken to stalking around the Houses of Parliament like Vincent Price in Witchfinder General, pointing at people and accusing them of witchcraft,” says Finkel. “He’s focusing on Priti Patel and Liz Truss and is currently proposing ducking them both in order to establish their innocence or guilt. The feeling around here is that he’s determined to see Priti Patel burned at the stake in the middle of Parliament Square.”

Rees-Mogg’s victimisation of female cabinet members has been roundly condemned as sexism by female Conservative MPs. “It is all too typical of the sort of outdated sexist and misogynist attitudes which still inform the opinions of too many of our ale colleagues,” declares Cynthia Ballspond, Tory MP for Hyde Park (South). “If this was witchcraft – not that there is any evidence that it was, who is to say that the perpetrator was a woman? Historically, witches could also be male. Why not Michael Gove, I mean, he looks furtive enough to be a practitioner of the dark arts, doesn’t he?” Even if witchcraft does lie at the heart of the exploding Prime Minister, Ballspond is highly suspicious of Rees-Mogg’s motives for throwing around allegations. “Undoubtedly, the best way to divert suspicion from oneself would be to point accusations at others,” she points out. “After, who more likely to be practicing witchcraft than someone like Rees-Mogg, who seems to have stepped out of the seventeenth century?” Regardless of the identity of the perpetrator, the very idea that witchcraft could be being employed by someone to wipe out rivals for the top job has seriously rattled senior Tory ministers. “Gove has gone all pious, wearing a monk’s habit and wearing a huge crucifix, while Chancellor Rishi Sunak has taken to sitting all day in a pentacle he’s chalked on the floor of his office, gibbering arcane incantations,” claims Rufus Finkel. “It is absolutely paralysing the business of government.”

Veteran Labour backbencher Tom Scratchett believes that there is a simpler explanation for Johnson exploding: shame. “He was a corrupt, morally degenerate fornicator presiding over an utterly incompetent government responsible for the deaths of thousands thanks to its bumbling handling of Covid and economic collapse as a result of Brexit,” he opines. “Who wouldn’t be so ashamed of such a record that they wouldn’t want to self-destruct?” The MP believes that the trigger for this catastrophic self-destruction might have the arrest of yet another Tory MP on allegations of rape. “Coming on the heels of that Tory MP being caught watching porn on his phone in the Commons and another one having to resign because of sex offences, it would have been enough to send anyone over the edge,” Cratchett speculates. “He just couldn’t think of another lie to try and explain it all away, so exploded instead!” Scratchett’s colleague, Pete Dogger, disagrees with this analysis, suggesting that the explosion of Johnson was actually fraud. “Look, he knows no shame, that’s been established over and again,” he explains. “The fact is that he has somehow faked this – with all the problems like the Northern Ireland protocol and Partygate stacking up, he decided that it was the only way out. Trust me, right now the real Boris Johnson is sunning himself in some tax haven!”

A growing number of Tory MPs suspect that the explosion of Boris Johnson lies not within their own ranks, but on the opposition benches. “Just look at Keir Starmer on the video footage of the incident,” says Finkel. “He’s the only one who doesn’t run when it happens – just sits there in his seat, with an enigmatic, yet slightly smug, look on his face!” The Tory MP also points to Starmer’s actions just before the incident. “He sits down after asking his question then, as Johnson stands up, he starts rubbing his temples – like Professor X in those films,” he says. “Clearly, he has advanced mental powers that allow him to make people combust and explode! This development could prove disastrous for the government! We have no defence against such powers!” But it isn’t just the Tories who are at risk from Starmer’s powers. “Only last week it was reported that former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s beard started smouldering as he gave a speech critical of the current leadership,” Finkel reports. “As Corbyn rushed from the room to douse his beard in the toilets, Keir Starmer was clearly to be seen at the back of the room, that same enigmatic smirk on his face as when Johnson exploded!”