In a somewhat odd turn of events, although it says Spring on my calendar, when I look out of the window I see flowers instead of snow.  (There could be a simple explanation for this: in trying to decipher a letter from the hospital to my GP recently, depending on which scale they’re using, I’m either asymptomatic or dead.  Though for the purposes of this post, let’s just assume it’s the former.) And with it being 2015 – so I’ve been led to believe, but you should never really trust anything governments tell you – it’s apparently time for a General Election.

Accordingly, without further ado, or writing to the The Times in the traditional manner (these days only the 1% can afford to subscribe to the thing), I am delighted to announce that I’ve just seen the first kitchens of spring.

What’s that, you ask?  Am I a little cuckoo?  (No, it’s just the way I’m standing. © Morecambe and Wise, 1976).  Far from it, dear reader!  Just peruse any national newspaper (quite a few of them are still free, even ones with words in them) and hundreds of pictures of an array of culinary accessories, American refrigerators and counter tops (NB. Does the PM have counter terrorism tops?) leap out at you, with the motley leaders of the motley main political parties affecting to appear relaxed in the foreground of a room they’ve just this minute located since the photographer arrived, whilst clinging to a mug (no, not the Deputy Prime Minister, how dare you think such a thing), and smiling at his wife.  Or smiling at the mug and clinging to his wife, depending on how attractive the tabloids have rated her.  (Very Important Stat before a General Election, obviously.)

These ‘top politician at home’ photographs are accordingly pored over by journalists, with their John Lewis and Fortnum and Mason catalogues to hand, helpfully telling us how much the politicians’ appliances cost, and the name of the cow that produced the milk for the £186 a kilo Tibetan goats’ cheese, hand-crafted by sherpas for 8p a week, which can be spotted on the top shelf of every Tory MP’s shiny Smeg.  Obviously, the message is that you can tell a lot about a professional politician from (one of) his kitchen(s), as the Labour leader, Ed Milisecond, discovered from the backlash which followed from his decision to be snapped in his servants’ kitchen – all bare walls, empty counter tops (which is counter to normal counter top behaviour) – instead of the family kitchen downstairs, in which he sits at the end of every day at his designer table, bacon sandwich on a collectable Liberty fine bone china plate, with his head in his hands.

And so, as I studied Politics, and thus am aware at degree level no less of how important kitchens are in the political arena, I’ve decided to share mine with you.  But first…

…many people have expressed curiosity as to why I didn’t go into politics myself after university; they all receive the very same response: a cry of: “What kind of girl do you think I am???!!!” and a swift expunging from my list of Facebook friends.  However, I do know it’s of interest as to what exactly one studies on a politics degree, so here’s a summary of what we were taught at my alma mater (objectively rated in the top 3000 universities in the country, a whole 3 places up from McDonalds Hamburger University in East Finchley, where you can supersize your degree for an extra thirty thousand quid to build a new research centre for acne).

WHAT YOU LEARN ON A POLITICS DEGREE

1.     How to lie (obvious, but important)

2.     How to claim expenses

3.     Where the subsidised bars are in the House of Commons (to the nearest 25)

4.     Advanced criminal accounting (crucial for home-switching to best effect)

5.     Where to source the best floating duck house

6.     How to obfuscate when asked the same question 900 times on a political programme (Paxman, You’re A Political Animal, Aren’t You? BBC, 1989 – 2014)

7.     Body Language, with particular reference to not touching your nose every time you say something

8.     How to rub people up the wrong way after a couple of cheap bottles of vintage claret in the subsided bars, with particular reference to police statements

Anyway, back to my kitchen.  Well, working as a political satirist (didn’t you know?  Tsk.  It’s my day job), it’s obviously vital for me to have a politically neutral scullery.  And so I have a blue kettle, a red clock, some yellow bananas (somehow appropriate, methinks), and a few green herbs.  As for anything purple, well, you won’t find anything remotely reminiscent of UKIP, no matter how hard you look.  (Although I have been known to have a couple of kippers for breakfast.)

Thus, you can rest assured that everything you read on this blog is 100% independently researched academically, and assiduously analysed with empirically-collected data.  As for who I shall be placing my cross next to on the ballot paper, well, there’s something I learned in the third year of my politics degree, which I regard as the pinnacle of my education, and will carry with me until the day I die; it’s how to spell:-

NONE OF THE ABOVE