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Liz Truss is the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. A politician who can’t spell illiterate, doesn’t care about our rising energy bills, and believes that trans women aren’t women. She’s the one who will lead the Conversative party into a ‘new era.' Except she won’t. Come on now.
Thatcher 3.0 will repeat all the same mistakes of her predecessors while ensuring the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor, all while the country sinks further into oblivion. We’re in for a brilliant time and I can’t wait, largely because it means we’re closer to revolution.
But the content gods demand I deliver, so here I am turning my political discontent into a list of characters that would do a much better job at leading this country than Ol’ Lizzy Trussy. I even threw in a couple of honourable mentions for good measure.
5 - Albert Wesker
The Tories didn’t do a great job of handling the pandemic, but there’s a sunglasses loving villain who knows a thing or two about the eruption of societal contagion - Albert Wesker.
Resident Evil’s head honcho is all about letting those beneath him perish for economic gain. He tried time and time again to enact the apocalypse within the Umbrella Corporation and is somehow still on their payroll. I bet he even takes advantage of company expenses to pay for his estate while the rest of his employees are going to foodbanks. Classic Tory.
But he’d still do a better job than Liz Truss. He’s charming, and not in the ‘Boris Johnson is trying his best despite being a giant bumbling fuckwit’ kind of charming. He knows how to talk his way through a tricky situation and remain on top. It’s why he hasn’t been sacked yet.
We’d trust him with our lives until it becomes clear he has been working for the opposite side this entire time. By then it will be far too late anyway, much like ten years of bitter Tory rule.
4 - Andrew Ryan
Rapture founder Andrew Ryan also hates the poor. He’d stumble over to your deceased nan’s freshly dug grave and declare her fit to work before waltzing off to a lockdown party.
Ryan likes to talk about the value of making one’s future, and how everyone is capable of achieving success if they pull up their bootstraps and get on with it. But like all the worst politicians, he is oblivious to his own familial privilege and how all the hard work in the world won’t make up for underlying societal systems that are dead set against those who weren’t born into a certain background.
He very much was, striking oil on his property and using this newfound wealth to craft a utopia inspired by his own ideological excess. Instead of using his success to help fix the world in which he was raised, he decided to escape it completely and build something far more problematic. Running away from responsibility and casting blame on others. Tory.
That being said, he’s charming like Wesker, and if he didn’t enact some policies to pull us out of economic devastation he’d at least sort us out with plasmids and speed along the coming societal collapse. Let me hurl a fistful of bees at Jacob Rees-Mogg before it all ends.
3 - King of the Cosmos
Katamari’s King of the Cosmos doesn’t care about humanity, but his indifference is weirdly endearing. Tories want us all to die, but this intergalactic dude simply wants to harvest our planet’s resources and have a good time. I can roll with that, and welcome his presence.
I can see it now - the day he takes office a sticky ball begins rolling through Swansea and picks up everything in its path. All we can do is play along, embracing the funky music and surrealist nature of our new overlord as he helps us ascend to a new plane of existence.
2 - Liquid Ocelot
Picture this: David Cameron and Ed Miliband are standing atop the Houses of Parliament, engaging in a fist fight to end all fist fights as two gargantuan mechs do battle around the streets of Westminster. As the encounter draws to a close, suddenly the two men share an aggressive yet passionate kiss on the lips. For one moment, their political lines are crossed.
This is what happens at the end of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots between Old Snake and Liquid Ocelot. Even the kissing part, I didn’t make that up. Now imagine if one of these men was our Prime Minister. Liquid Ocelot is a tyrant who believes that absolute military power is the ultimate goal, and will go to extreme lengths to achieve this ideology even if it means enslaving entire nations and removing the need for independent thought.
Sure sounds like the Tories wanted to prevent us from protesting any and all political decisions, while also censoring media and commentators that seek to paint them in a negative light. We all know they’d bring back national service in a heartbeat, too.
Honourable Mentions
Before we get to the top pick, I want to run down a couple of honourable mentions that I neglected to include in the main selection because they aren’t exactly from video games. You can tell I am setting very serious rules for this very serious article you’re reading.
Shadow Weaver
Shadow Weaver from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is a real piece of work. She’s a tyrant, got away with child abuse, and doesn’t care about any of the people living under her rule. But at least she does all of this horrible stuff with untold efficiency. The Tories aren’t even good at being soulless husks, they somehow even manage to fuck that up. Shadow Weaver could show them thing or two while still furthering the party’s homophobic agenda.
Phil Spencer
The Head of Xbox is gaming’s Jeremy Corbyn. He understands what the people want, has the resources to make it happen, and more than likely gives amazing hugs. He would absolutely be a better Prime Minister than Liz Truss, and I mean that with full sincerity.
1 - Mael Radec
I’m not even beating around the bush with this one. Killzone’s Helghast are space nazis. Evil colonisers who wish to murder all those who stand in their way to ensure their fascist regime remains on top. Mael Radec is the second game’s final boss, and believes himself to be a fearless leader with patriotic ideals that reign above any form of rhyme or reason. If I had to make a direct comparison, I suppose he is pretty damn close to Priti Patel.
He doesn’t care about anyone else, so long as the Helghans win. Millions of innocents can die, and the entire country can fall apart, but he’s on top, so what does it matter? If that isn’t a Tory I don’t know what is. Radec would also make the party fascism a bit more obvious, if that’s even possible at this point.