This article is taken from the July 2023 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

“What on earth are you wearing?” Akshata is worried about Rishi. He’s dressed in shorts, flip flops and a hoodie. He looks like the man who comes to clean our Yorkshire swimming pool, except that instead of “Theakston Bitter”, his sweatshirt says “Stanford”. 

“Alright, dudes!” Rishi replies. “I’ve decided to lean in to my inner nerd. Tech people are in right now. Everyone’s talking about Elon. Voters want to be led by someone who’s in touch with the future.”

“And that’s you?”

“Hey, do I need to say it in crypto?”

“But darling, wouldn’t you be more comfortable in a suit?”

“Suits are for squares! I’m going to do PMQs in my dressing gown, like Zuck! It’s time to shake things up.” He waves his phone around. “Does anyone know how to connect to the Wi-Fi in here?”

“What if we put the NHS into the blockchain?”

James, who used to write nice things about us in The Times and now likes to sit in the toilets crying, wanders in. Rishi turns to him. “I’ve been thinking about how I can be more popular. Let’s set up a website where people can reach me direct. GetRishiQuick.com.” 

James sighs and sits down. “What have you been reading now?” he asks.

“Well, there was this piece in the Telegraph about something called ChatGPT …”

“Yes …”

“And it got me thinking that maybe artificial intelligence could solve our problems.”

“Which problems, Rish?”

“Can the chat-thing drive lorries?”

“I’m afraid not. It’s really only useful for generating plausible but content-free sentences.”

“Oh, well, maybe it could write my speeches.”

“Actually, we’ve been doing that for a couple of months. No one noticed.”

“Great! This is the kind of thinking I like. We should move fast and break things! What can we break?”

“I’m not sure what’s left.”

“What if we put the NHS into the blockchain?”

James is quiet for a while and then tries to change the subject. “Rish,” he says, “we need to make a plan for these by-elections. We’re going to need to have a response if your new Tech Bro identity hasn’t won voters over by polling day.”

“Hey — maybe our statement could be an NFT!” 

“Excuse me,” says James. “I just need to nip to the loo.”

“Really?” says Akshata. “Again?”