Who Is Really in Charge of Britain?

The government is collapsing. England is going to win the World Cup. People keep getting poisoned by nerve agents in Salisbury. The Queen may – or may not – be dead. At a farm somewhere, I'm sure, a lamb is about to be born with Satan's head. It's really fucking hot, we've all been drunk for weeks and no one has a clue what's going on.

In these great times, it's impossible to know who's really in charge. For months, we've been told, Theresa May is the Prime Minister. But is she really? Was she ever? With no mandate and a now terminally squabbling cabinet, it's hard to claim she has any real power. After the last election, it often seemed like Jeremy Corbyn was the Prime Minister.

But who – who, can we really say? – is the Prime Minister now?

Technically, I suppose, we should probably start this list off by stating the case for the individual who is still – somehow, at the time of writing – "officially" recognised as Her Majesty's Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Theresa May.

But let's face it: official recognition of this sort has long since ceased to mean much. Granted, she's been trying. What, after all, was that "Chequers Deal" all about, if not to convince the country that she's still in charge? But that's turned out so clownishly – so Chuckle-Brothers-trying-to-do-a-house-clearance-in-a-haunted-mansion disastrous – that I'm starting to doubt Theresa May was ever the Prime Minister to begin with. Maybe she was never even an MP. Google tells me Theresa May has been the member for Maidenhead since 1997. But are we even sure that "Maidenhead" is a real place? Has anyone ever been there? How deep does this illusion go?

Being the Prime Minister points: 0

David Davis has resigned over the alleged Chequers Deal, and so people are saying that this threatens to bring down the government. This suggests that David Davis has a lot of power. So perhaps David Davis is the real Prime Minister – perhaps he has been, all along.

But this doesn't quite make sense. Ever since he's been the Brexit Secretary, David Davis has held a lot of power – because he has constantly threatened to resign. But the thing is that now, David Davis actually has resigned. It therefore stands to reason that David Davis no longer has the power to resign anymore. This means he no longer has the same power that he used to. Thus, logically: if in fact he ever was the Prime Minister, David Davis has just resigned from being it.

Technically, of course, David Davis could just start resigning from other things. He's already resigned as an MP once in his career, triggering a by-election in 2008 over the erosion of civil liberties in the UK. So perhaps he could do this again. And then perhaps after he's stopped being an MP, David Davis could resign from… I don't know, his car? And then after he's stopped driving a car, David Davis could stop sleeping in his house, and then he could stop using money, and then he could stop eating, and then he could stop drinking, and then he could hold his breath until he turns blue, and actually I reckon David Davis must have done this a lot as a child; it's obviously how he always made his parents give him what he wanted. So he's not the Prime Minister, but at least we've managed to figure the guy out psychologically.

Being the Prime Minister points: 2.

The government is collapsing. But football is coming home. The reason football is coming home is because of Gareth Southgate, who is the only truly unifying and heroic figure this country has left, except perhaps for Jordan Pickford and Harry Maguire and Harry Kane.

Jeremy Corbyn has been saying we ought to have another bank holiday to celebrate England winning the World Cup, which is obviously now something that will definitely happen. Predictably, Labour backbenchers have been sniping at their leader for politicising the World Cup. But this is even more idiotic than it superficially looks, because politics and football are inevitably and irrevocably intertwined.

For this reason, there is a real case to be made that Gareth Southgate is in fact the most talented and successful politician of his generation.

Being the Prime Minister points: 58.

If Gareth Southgate is the lovely man we all love to love, then Russia's Vladimir Putin is the evil man we all love to hate. Putin despises this country and our way of life: that much is well-established. He is also the world's most accomplished hacker, and able to distort every aspect of our political process and trigger international incidents at will.

Perhaps, then, the shameful and disturbing truth is that Putin is currently running this country as PM. Britain is just another annex of Putin's Russia. Just like America is. Just like, let's face it, everything else is. It's only a matter of time before the Houses of Parliament are finally revealed to be a hologram projected onto a giant replica of St Basil's Cathedral.

But this can't quite be right. Because at the weekend, Croatia beat Russia at the football, in Russia, despite Putin hiring a team of snipers to take down all the plucky Croatian players during the match. If Putin can't even hack a simple game of football, on soil he is literally legally in charge of, then how can he expect to be able to hack the entire political process of a country – one that he has yet to assume control of openly?

Pound-for-pound, Southgate is beating Putin in a game of Being In Charge.

Being the Prime Minister points: 31.

For now, though, let's face it: only one entity reigns supreme. It's really fucking hot. It has been for… how long now? Two, three weeks? I don't remember what it was like to walk outside and feel comfortable. People call weather like this "pleasant", but who are they kidding? It's unbearable. Other countries regularly handle temperatures like this, sure, but their houses and infrastructure are built for it.

Heatwaves have this sort of cloaking, dominating quality that seem to encompass everything: all my memories of heatwaves are bathed in hot colour, beating red and yellow light. Weber defined the state as having a monopoly on violence, but heatwaves have a monopoly on everything. The Heat is in power now, and as climate change gets worse and worse its grip on us is only going to grow tighter. The England World Cup victory, the most left-wing government in British history… these things have arrived too late. The plants are brown and dying, the birds are dropping dead from exhaustion in mid-air, the permafrost is melting and we're all going to start boiling alive in our skin.

Being the Prime Minister points: 100 (degrees celsius).

@HealthUntoDeath