Election Power Ranking: Behold the Most Cursed Selfie of This Election

We're one week off from polling day and it already feels like the UK has collectively aged about a thousand years since the start of this election cycle. Our bones are tired. Our heads ache. We haven't had a good night's sleep since Jacob Rees-Mogg said he would be too clever to have died in Grenfell. Remember when everyone complained about the snap election and said it was called too quickly? Well, now it appears the only thing that hasn't come too quickly is death.

Anyway, on to this week's power ranking!

Difficult to pin down exactly what's so awful about this, but let's have a go: Holly Willoughby's pained hostage expression. The sad tinsel in the background of the This Morning set. Phillip Schofield in general. And then the pièce de résistance: Boris Johnson looming in the foreground like a haunted blancmange.

The sad, rheumy eyes of someone kept up late at night knowing that wherever he goes, he'll be heckled. The caption: a desperate attempt to spin another lacklustre TV appearance – most notably not the Andrew Neil TV appearance that everyone wants – into a "solid press op".

Sure, people are mad that Holly and Phil allowed the picture to happen in the first place, but really, if this truly cursed selfie counts as positive press then the Tories should be worried.

Brexit Party candidates Annunziata Rees-Mogg – sister of cabinet minister Jacob – as well as Lance Forman, John Longworth and Lucy Harris announced on Thursday that they're quitting the party, and urged supporters to vote for the Tories instead. "The Conservatives are the only option for Brexit supporters and democrats alike," Rees-Mogg insisted.

Nigel Farage, erstwhile leader of the Brexit Party, said he was "disappointed" by the news. But Nige, hear me out: what if the real traitors were the friends we made along the way?

On Friday, two members of the public died after being stabbed by convicted terrorist Usman Khan on London Bridge. David Merritt – father to Jack, one of the victims – said he did not want his son’s death "to be used as the pretext for more draconian sentences". What did Boris Johnson do? Go on the Andrew Marr Show two days after the attack to pledge he would be more than happy to lock people up and throw away the key. Classy!

If you want to gaze upon a man so thoroughly uncomfortable in his own skin that his own veins are desperately attempting to take flight from his body, boy do I have a treat for you. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab went on the Today Programme and was blindsided by Nick Robinson waving the equivalent of a smoking gun: a 147-page publication that Raab co-authored that advocated breaking up the NHS and allowing "private operators" into the service.

GQ named everyone’s favourite Thomas Cromwell cosplay act the worst dressed of 2019, beating out luminaries such as Jacob Rees-Mogg and Cristiano Ronaldo, a man who never met a pair of skintight jeans he didn’t like. Then again, who cares about things like "sartorial standards" or "the perfect pocket square" when you’ve got your latest conspiracy-ridden blog post to furiously pound out at 2AM in the morning?

Like the Regina George of liberal democracies, Justin Trudeau and a circle of hangers-on (read: other world leaders) were spotted at the NATO summit bitching about Donald Trump. Sure, there’s the pleasure of overhearing what politicians really think of Trump, but then there’s the delicious chaser of Johnson's attempts to contribute, met with the polite confusion of cool girls being confronted by the high school dweeb. She doesn’t even go here!

We stan a pop princess with the political conviction to tell her fans to vote Labour. See you on the doorstep, Dua!

@misszing