PANTOMIME season is over but no one seems to have informed the Tory backbenches.
Like ex-soap stars clinging to the last of their fame by playing Widow Twankey in a provincial theatre, some Conservative MPs are planning to descend on the north's rural constituencies at the invitation of their partners in government, the DUP.
Last year’s DUP conference already saw Boris Johnson make what we can all hope was the first stage in his farewell tour. The rapturous reception he received from some DUP members was frankly embarrassing, especially since if they bothered to scratch Boris's very shallow surface they'd realise his main interest isn't Brexit or the maintenance of the union but Boris himself.
(Incidentally, Boris’s Twitter feed is full of photos of him looking deeply uncomfortable when faced with actual members of the public. My particular favourite is one picture of him looking utterly confused while standing beside a man in a terrible Christmas jumper.)
But Boris may just have been the warm-up act for the DUP’s newest crush, real life PG Wodehouse character Jacob Rees-Mogg.
The late Ian Paisley would likely have held Eton-educated Rees-Mogg at arm’s length. But his son Ian Jnr, who must be one of Westminster’s best networkers, has somehow enticed the Honourable Member for the 18th century over to North Antrim to give a speech later this month.
Being from North Antrim, I’m not sure how well Mr Rees-Mogg’s oddly mannered ways will sit with the farmers and local business owners who make up the party’s main support in the constituency. This is a man, after all, who in 1997 canvassed the traditional Labour seat of Central Fife in Scotland with his nanny - in his mother’s Mercedes.
What nanny thought of Mr Paisley’s unprecedented 30-day suspension from the House of Commons is unclear.
A wiser head might suggest to Mr Rees-Mogg that he may not want to be closely associated with an MP who could be facing a second investigation over allegations he failed to declare a luxury family holiday.
To be censured over undeclared holidays to Sri Lanka while advocating on behalf of its repressive regime may be regarded as a misfortune; to face a further probe into a holiday to the Maldives while also lobbying on behalf of a government with an appalling record for the persecution of Christians looks like carelessness.
But such matters don’t seem to concern Mr Rees-Mogg whose peculiar tirades against the Irish government over Brexit will have won him new admirers within the DUP. So keen is he to return the admiration that he's willing to speak at a fundraising event - for the unionist party.
It’s an odd political decision to raise money for a rival party, given that the Tories already stand in elections in the north. The two parties may have a confidence and supply agreement, yet it would have been unthinkable for a Conservative MP to raise funds for the Liberal Democrats while they were in a coalition government.
Now Mr Rees-Mogg’s colleague Peter Bone is to follow suit by giving a speech at a DUP event in Strangford next month. The Tory MP didn’t know much about the event when The Irish News contacted him last week. As far as he was concerned, he’d been invited to some kind of function by DUP MP Jim Shannon and was planning to attend.
He also didn’t appear to be worried about fundraising for a rival party in what must be a breach of Conservative Party rules.
But then the Tories’ grasp of politics in the north has never been particularly strong. And it’s unlikely that either Mr Rees-Mogg or Mr Bone will face any party sanctions given how little Conservative HQ really cares about Northern Ireland. All Tory members in the north can really do is politely ask their colleagues not to be so stupid.
Mr Rees-Mogg and Mr Bone are certain to get a warm reception from DUP supporters when they travel to the north.
Fingers crossed they do a full pantomime dame act. Any mention of the Irish government and Brexit can be greeted with boos and hisses.
And they can throw some sweets into the audience while people shout 'Leo Varadkar is behind you'.
Unfortunately for the rest of us, closer links between the DUP and the Tories will do nothing to resolve a disastrous Brexit or the impasse at Stormont.
So the political pantomime will continue.
Read more: Tory Brexiteers' band of Dad's Army idiots means we're all doomed
