Steve Bell’s If… cartoon strip in the Guardian attracted generations of loyal readers. If… Stands Up is his hilarious commentary on our current political madness. Unmissable highlights include a Jubilee fly-past over Buckingham Palace by Boris Johnson’s bottom. Liz Truss taking back control of her own eyeballs. A dead-horse race between zombie “Treeza” May and pink-rubber fiend David Cameron, towing his bijou shepherd’s hut. Rishi Sunak flogging the skeletal remains of Margaret Thatcher. Donald Trump with a golden toilet seat brain. And Keir Starmer, aka Keeves the butler, assuring the toffs that “the below-stairs movement is realigning its values with those of the British people.” If… Stands Up also keeps a gimlet eye on Charles and the Royals. Bell draws an unforgettable picture of a nation that has left reality behind. Why did the chlorinated chicken cross the Atlantic? Who needs hell when you have the Conservative Party? Might the Labour leadership simply be robots in disguise? In a world of war and chauvinism, Bell picks himself up and goes in search of a new source of laughs. In this, if nothing else, Westminster politics rarely disappoints.
