Hey: Which Is the Most Hysterical Newspaper Front Page Today?

Who's up for an election? I, personally, have never been up for anything less in my life, and— actually, you know what? Let me tell you a little story. When I was at school, in that thrilling electric year between 16 and 17 when not only has everyone discovered sex but they have started having it, a rumour went around from one of the new boys at sixth form, who said he'd had a lot more sex than I now know to be either true or medically possible. The new boy said this: an STI test – this boy alleged, because he'd had one, because he had endured so much sex that his penis necessitated one – a STI test involved an NHS nurse in thin rubber gloves taking a cocktail umbrella and poking it down your bellpiece for debris. He shuddered with the retelling of it. "A cocktail umbrella." Down your bellpiece. Imagine. Can you imagine? Imagine! Anyway, what I am saying is this: I would rather endure that totally medically unviable cocktail umbrella-shaped bellend destruction, mashed incessantly by rubber gloved hands for the entire duration of one full 24-hour day, than have to go through an election again.

But, look, we're going to have to do an election again, so let's just get on with it.

So the British newspapers have caught up to yesterday's news that an election is happening, and the results are predictable: frothing, soundbite-y hysteria mixed in with very run-of-the-mill front pages and photos of Theresa May looking somewhere between an admin assistant on a Star Wars battle destroyer ("Your faxes, Lord Vader") and a full-evil Big Brother-type face-on-posters dictator who just so happens to cut her own hair. Mixed, is what the reaction might charitably be described as. Mixed.

"BUT," I hear you ask, in all capitals, "BUT JOEL: WHICH IS THE MOST HYSTERICAL UP-FOR-A-FUCKING-ELECTION BIG BOMBASTIC NEWSPAPER FRONT PAGE HEADLINE/PHOTO COMBO TODAY?" And that is a good question. So let's ask it:

Notes & rules:

– I will not be doing every front page, because I have a life to lead beyond looking at every front page today and also because the FT is, typically, very orange and dry.

– Front pages will be given a cumulative score, adjudicated by me, and marked in terms of a percentage out of 100 about how wet they are for an election.

– I can and will be making jokes about Theresa May's haircut (she looks like she's been given that haircut by a juvenile detention centre after starting too many school fires! She looks like the state has decided she cannot be trusted to have hair past her ears, in case she sets fire to it! I mean!).

Anyway:

POINTS FOR:
– A "political cartoon" which is just a deck of cards with Theresa May as Queen and she is saying the word "snap", as in "snap election", which is proper it's-six-minutes-to-midnight-Tim-where's-the-political-cartoon-mate-we're-going-to-need-something-soon-or-your-bollocks-are-on-the-block stuff;
– Widescreen photo of Big Tezza May and her folder, looking like she's about to hiss "ye sssss ma sssssssster" and hand it to Sauron, who has transcended being a big eye and instead become a lad with arms and a torso and a thing for Brexit admin;
– The headline "May Heads For Election Landslide", where you can almost hear the sound of subs rubbing their dry hands together and shouting "YES! More TORIES!"

POINTS AGAINST:
– Zero points against. Already this format is creaking.

HOW WET IS THE TIMES FOR AN ELECTION: 100 percent wet.

POINTS FOR:
– Photo of May looking like that local woman who always comes into the chippy at 7PM on a Friday night toting a load of bin bags full of fuck-knows-what and somehow spends five entire minutes leering at the illuminated board behind the counter, holding up the whole queue, before choosing to have for her dinner: "chips".
– The entirely redundant photo caption, "Mrs May at No10 calls for election", as if that isn't incredibly evident from the photo and the headline both.

POINTS AGAINST:
– That headline is a shitshow. That headline is a shitshow. Here would be a good headline, if you were married to the May-as-Zombie-Thatcher narrative: "The Lady IS For Turning." Just leave it. Just leave it at that. But no: somebody put a big "U" in there, making it a double-pun, whereby the puns negate each other, one acid and one alkaline. Also, if you look closely, that front page says the square root of fuck all. Yes, Theresa May said she wouldn't call an election. Then she called an election. Are you wet for it or not, Mirror? Come down one side of the fence or the other. I'm not having this fence-sitting.

HOW WET IS THE MIRROR FOR THE ELECTION: It is currently 0 percent wet, because it has not decided how wet it wants to be yet. Good to have such colossal voices in mainstream media now, isn't it.

POINTS FOR: 
– Instead of a photograph, i seem to have commissioned an artist to make a mural of May out of human teeth, and then given her the flyaway hairstyle of a mid-90s outdoor weather reporter on an It'll Be Alright On the Night filler clip;
– "Secret Plan Hatched During Snowdonia Walking Holiday" is a very British headline, possibly the most British ever. There's also something very twee and sweet but simultaneously dreadful about the idea of Theresa May and Phillip trudging up Snowdon in that 37-years-of-married-misery silence, getting to the summit, hardily unscrewing the flask on some tea and whispering, "You know what? Let's fucking plunge the country into chaos again – it's been a good six months since we did that" into the wind.
– The speed at which someone at the i knocked up an election special logo is very impressive, light years ahead of all other newspapers today (and websites! We haven't even thought of a logo!)

POINTS AGAINST:
– Heavy use of black, both in the photo background and the boxout, gives the whole issue a funereal vibe, and tbh it's a real bummer. I suppose that sums up the vibe of this announcement, though: all it's really caused is a deep, deep outbreath of apathy. Is this going to be Britain's first goth election? Stay tuned to find out.

HOW WET IS i FOR THE ELECTION: Judging by how quickly it managed to drum up behind-the-scenes stories, analysis and tactical voting insight, I'm going to say "pretty wet". Looking at a strong 80 percent-er, here.

POINTS FOR:
– Only newspaper to lead with a full body-and-plinth shot of May, which just goes to highlight what I was thinking all of yesterday when watching the 11.15AM announcement, which is, 'The neck on that podium is very thin, isn't it? That's too thin, for purpose. That's far too thin.'
– Theresa May's expression sometimes reminds me of a cat, out of its gourd on catnip, seduced and baffled by the presence of a simple red laser dot, and no more is that the case than here.
– The Sun is wet for – not just an election! – but also for the Tories to eat themselves, so May here is painted as some sort of all-conquering Tory Boudica, ready not only to crush with clubs the vile ferret man of the Labour left, but also anyone who dares to dissent against her Hard Brexit plans, which all-in-all is very rich for someone who doesn't even dare have a televised debate with the other party leaders. I mean, yeah, a 200-seat Tory majority might sound good and all, but I don't see how it's possible to get one when you won't even have Corbyn out on live TV.

POINTS AGAINST:
– You've got to hand it to the Sun, that Wootton-employing shitrag, that they managed to keep "spuriously linking a TOWIE cast member to a fucking acid attack" on the front page on the first day of possibly the most crucial election in a generation.
– You've got to hand it to the Sun, that intolerance-inciting shitrag, for having the election-themed headline "BLUE MURDER" less than 12 months after the death of MP Jo Cox, who was killed at the peak of Brexit hype last June. I mean, I might be being sensitive here, but it's very much more likely that the Sun is being fucking dead-brained and moronic, again, isn't it.

HOW WET IS THE SUN FOR THE ELECTION: 110 percent wet.

POINTS FOR:
– Oh, it's just a Guardian front page, isn't it? Dry and sensible in the face of bamboozling horror. A John Crace sketch. A photo of Corbyn where he doesn't look stranded in a toilet, which is akin to outright pro-Corbyn propaganda at this point. Articles and analysis. Snorefest. There is nothing here to see.

POINTS AGAINST:
– If you fold the paper in half it reads like this:

As if Theresa May is starring in one of those five-minute YouTube series set in south London where a girl gets a load of texts for two minutes then dramatically storms to a party to reclaim her man and then it ends on a cliffhanger, same thing every week, for 30 consecutive fucking webisodes, somehow, I mean who is funding this—

HOW WET IS THE GUARDIAN FOR AN ELECTION: Clear eyes, full hearts, 60 percent wet for election.

POINTS FOR:

– I think "deliver EU" is a pun on the word "you", which again really encapsulates the energy of this election;
– They picked a photo of Theresa May pulling the exact same face your mum did that time you said you wanted to drop out of second-year Psychology to become a vape tricker full time;

POINTS AGAINST:
– I cannot. Fucking. Believe. The Daily Express. Is still finding ways. Somehow. To put a photo of Diana. On the front cover of its newspaper. In this. Big, big 2017. Diana. Still. A photo of Diana. Absolutely unreal.
– You really have to admire the hubris of the Daily Express, don't you? "THE WORLD'S GREATEST NEWSPAPER," it says, which is demonstrably false. "15P CHEAPER THAN THE DAILY MIRROR (AND TEN TIMES BETTER)," it says. Daily Express, mate, you cost 10p. You really need to stop boasting about how good you are. You're like one of those fat kids from secondary school who swears he's still hard even after a one-on-one fight situation saw a boy from Year 7 headlock-and-run him forehead-first into the history teacher's car (me.) (this happened to me.). Stop trying to flex.

HOW WET IS THE EXPRESS FOR THE ELECTION: The Daily Express does not care for your petty election, REMOANERS, because they have already WON. They are the greatest 10p newspaper in the WORLD. Princess DIANA.

POINTS FOR:
– Big up the Daily Star for being the only paper brave enough to feature a boxout portrait of James "Jamie" Vardy – possibly the most Brexit footballer living and working in the UK today – doing that most British of British things, yelling undoubtedly at a European. That, truly, is a portrait of this election. This election will be won by the first MP to look barrel-down a camera and say "fuck the foreigns". 
– The headline "SNAP, CACKLE & POP", which, sadly – and I have looked at this for many, many minutes now – means absolutely nothing, sorry.

POINTS AGAINST:
– This front page spends about 10 percent of the available space boasting about its own price and how much that is relative to the Sun, which can only go against it, points-wise. The headline may as well be "The Daily Star – 30p and you get to see a pair of tits and all."

HOW WET IS THE DAILY STAR FOR THE ELECTION: As long as a TOWIE beauty's boyfriend is a suspect in an acid attack and bikini photos of her on Instagram are still free-to-use, the world will keep on turning for the Star. So it is truly 0 percent wet for the election.

POINTS FOR:
– Somehow made the font for "The Daily Telegraph" glowing, as if Theresa May is using vast and eerie mind powers to imbue it with a startling electricity? Don't really understand that editorial choice but that's what we're dealing with here? The Daily Telegraph is so tumescent for this election to happen that it is literally glowing?
– Honestly, I'd be so mad if I were Theresa May. Biggest political moment of your career and the wind has made it so your hair is absolutely all over the shop. A missing boy at the centre of a manhunt, finally found after 16 days in the wilderness, lost in the lights as the helicopters descend. That's what it's doing to her here. Nightmare.

POINTS AGAINST:
– There are literally zero points against the Telegraph on the day a Tory PM calls a snap election ostensibly as a flex to try to destroy Labour and empathy once and for all. I'm surprised there aren't photos of the entire editorial staff popping champagne on pages 2 thru 7.

HOW WET IS THE TELEGRAPH FOR THE ELECTION: 100 percent.

POINTS FOR:

–CRUSH THE UNDERSCUM
– BRING DOWN YOUR BLACK BOOTS FROM THE ATTIC, BERNARD, WE'RE TAKING THE YOUTHS TO WAR
– STEP YOUR NECK ABOVE THE PARAPET AND HAVE IT BROKEN AND STOMPED BACK DOWN AGAIN, VILE RAT
– BREXIT MEANS BREXIT
– MAY MEANS MAY
– JUNE MEANS ELECTION
– AND THE TORIES SHALL RULE THESE FALLOW LANDS, O LORD, UNTIL THE SKY GOES ORANGE IN THE DYING OF THE SUN, AND THE SOIL SMOULDERS BENEATH US; THE TORIES SHALL RULE US, MY BOY, UNTIL THE EARTH TURNS INTO HELL

POINTS AGAINST:
– I don't know. Is "CRUSH THE SABOTEURS" a bit much? Feels a bit much. Feels like maybe it's a bit much.

HOW WET IS THE DAILY MAIL FOR THE ELECTION: Oceans are drier than the Daily Mail is for this. The Daily Mail is currently exceeding all known percentage measurements. Let's just settle on 1,000 percent and call it at that.

@joelgolby