The Tories are hiring someone to stop the media complaining about how rubbish they are

Never has there been such a perfect time to be paid to talk about how good the Conservative Party is. Still reeling from the whiplash of jumping between three prime ministers in the space of a year, the political party which has overseen a deadly pandemic, cost-of-living crisis and multiple strike actions is offering an “exciting opportunity” to head up its press department at Conservative Campaign Headquarters (or CCHQ).

We haven’t seen such heavy lifting since we watched the finals of World’s Strongest Man.

The advert for the permanent, 36-hour job - spotted by The Spectator’s diary editor James Heale – requires the successful applicant to be in “constant communication with lobby correspondents and other journalists” so they can “generate favourable publicity for the Conservative Party and to minimise negative publicity”.

Weirdly, they haven’t specified the size of the barrel you would need to scrape in order to find such good news about the Tories, but perhaps that’s something to raise at the interview stage.

It also requires an “excellent mix” of a long list of capabilities and a track record – you know, one better than the Conservatives’ 13 years in government.

On the list are a “university degree or equivalent experience” (no mention of Eton), “campaigning experience”, the ability to “react rapidly to negative stories and minimising their impact” and to “oversee administrative aspects” of the press office such as “holiday entitlement”, “expenses reimbursements” and “HR issues”.

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We can only hope the poor soul picked for the job doesn’t have to contend with more rule-breaking parties, or deal with Dominic Raab’s anguish at the sea being “closed” whilst on holiday.

Perhaps more humorously is the requirement that the applicant “must have a common sense approach to situations and must be capable of using your own initiative in specific situations”.

“Initiative” which has been so powerfully displayed by recent Conservative Party leaders such as Boris Johnson (who hid in a fridge to avoid a journalist and broke the law while in office), Theresa May (who actually took a fake P45 from a prankster back in 2017) and Liz Truss (who tanked the economy with her disastrous mini-budget and lasted just 45 days in office).

Oh, and there’s no salary information available other than it being “competitive”, because why on earth would a major political party need to be transparent about that sort of thing?

For those genuinely willing to apply for the job, they have until 18 January to do so.

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