Jack Averty: Why I’m giving Brenda from Bristol my vote of confidence

It wasn’t Theresa May, nor, shock horror, was it Jeremy Corbyn. No, this week belonged to one woman and one woman only – Brenda from Bristol.

For those who aren’t familiar with Brenda, she went viral this week when she was quizzed on her doorstep about the announcement of the snap General Election.

To say she was not pleased would be an understatement.

“You’re jokin’”, she barked in her thick Bristol accent when approached by a local TV reporter, “Not another one” she added, her facial expressions growing exasperated.

“For God’s sake. I can’t honestly . . . I can’t stand this. There is too much politics goin’ on at the moment, why does she need to do it?”

Replace ‘I’ with ‘we’ and you have the nation’s collective response to Mrs May’s announcement on Tuesday.

Hopefully, what Brenda was doing was firing the starter gun on her own leadership bid as she has managed to garner more support in the last few days than all the current party political leaders put together in the past few years.

She’s received messages backing her campaign from all over the world, including America and Australia, with the hashtag #BrendaforPM doing the rounds on social media.

Surely we’d all love to have Brenda negotiating Brexit on our behalf? You want to stay in the single market? Brenda will keep you in the single market. You want the rights of Britons currently working in the EU secured? Brenda will secure them. There would be no hard or soft Brexit, we would be subject to a Brenda Brexit.

But sadly there’s a more serious point to Brenda’s message. People are genuinely getting so fed up of politics, and having it constantly shoved down their throats it’s only making the problem worse.

If someone who writes political stories and studied politics for three years at university is getting a bit fed up with it all then God knows how the rest of the country feels.

Surely politicians know this? Mrs May has her own personal agenda for calling the election, which, although not fine, is understandable, but what excuse do the rest of the MPs have for going along with it? Why is no one turning around and saying actually Mrs May this is the last thing people want and, you know, we are elected by the people and we do technically serve them so maybe we should listen to them?

You can guarantee Brenda would’ve spoken up if she was an MP, and you can also guarantee she wouldn’t have minced her words either.

The common phrase ‘too much of a good thing’ could be applied here – save for the fact most of us became drastically disillusioned with politics following the never-ending string of atrocities 2016 brought us and, quite rightly, stopped seeing it as a good thing. If people have grown disinterested, then what does the Government expect will be the reaction when more of it is forced upon us?

When chez Averty throws open its doors as a Michelin-starred restaurant it will be serving the food that people want.

The chef might have an obsession with spaghetti carbonara and cook it every night for himself, but if the diners become bored of it they won’t be force fed it every time they return.

To provide a more realistic comparison (chez Averty will have two Michelin stars, not one) let’s look at by far the best TV show knocking around at the moment – Line of Duty.

I’m sure we can all agree it is outstandingly good but can you imagine if you were put through the twists and turns that take place every Sunday, every week of the year? It would be unbearable and you’d be left a nervous wreck. Going into work every Monday is bad enough, but you can amplify that tenfold with your Line of Duty hangover.

The show knows how intense and how good it is, so it’s limited viewers to 23 episodes inside four series in the last five years.

When it’s not on, the show’s creators and cast get on with their other jobs – heaven forbid politicians would do the same.

We all know what an intense time it’s been in politics recently and as a nation we were happy to go along with it. People know politics is important, even if they don’t really care about it.

But now was supposed to be somewhat of a lull period. Article 50 has been formally triggered and we were not due another general election until 2020 – lovely stuff.

Mrs May had her chance to prove she can run the country and get the best out of Brexit, Mr Corbyn had more time to prove he can provide an effective opposition and be a viable alternative.

Instead the public are going to have to go through eight weeks of torture with countless news headlines, straight-in-the-bin flyers shoved through letterboxes and, of course, the Jehovah’s Witness-style door knockers.

Still, at least in this last scenario we can channel our inner-Brenda. ‘Not another one’ we can squawk when door knocker number 100 descends to tell us how good their party is and how terrible the others are.

Hopefully, when the chaos ends in June and we can go back to actually living our lives without interruption, we will all be left with one clear message – be more like Brenda.

‘Arsene Wenger has penned a new five year contract’ – “You’re jokin’!”

‘Thandie Newton has just killed someone else off in Line of Duty’ – ‘Why does she need to do it?’

‘Congratulations Mr Averty your restaurant has been awarded its fourth Michelin star’ – ‘Not another one’.

Brenda can provide a soundtrack to the rest of our lives and so, for that reason, we all know what to do come June 8 – #BrendaForPM.