The Supreme Leader of Iran, Mojtaba Khamenei, is - surprisingly - a devout fan of the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer.
'Your leader shows us the way,' said an IRGC insider. 'He shows, through his landslide victory, that he is tremendously popular with the people, while at the same time protecting his elites and providing great benefits for his favoured insiders, like Peter Mandelson. He shows that you don't need any kind of profile and policies in order to lead. He shows that you can ignore the press and all its nonsense. He shows that you can be fierce with your enemies like Angela Rayner and Jess Philips and Wesley Streeting.'
'Our great leader also fears for his life because of the Yankees. Our leader must also try to rally a country battered and bruised, and with citizens who are cowed and unsure and unnecessarily worried about their human rights, and their democracy. Our leader must also try to keep crude oil pumping. Our leader must also try to rally and army and a navy that has been decimated and needs rebuilding. Our leader must also control the media messaging with an iron fist.
'Our leader, though, is less bothered about having other people to pay for his clothes. That's just humiliating.
'The parallels between our countries are extremely strong, although we are still not very keen on Salman Rushdie. Unlike Starmer, we don't enjoy magical realism.'
All the pain and suffering of life in modern Britain has been laid bare as the country's poorest jostle and fight to hand over £335 each for a plastic watch.
"Sure, I'm on benefits and life is hard," said Dwayne Scally, jumping the queue outside a Swatch store in Liverpool to get a coveted "Royal Pop" pocket watch.
"But life will be unbearable unless I get one of them mini-clock things to show me mates down the pub."
"Then I'll flog it on eBay, probably, as well as the other two that I intend to nick," Scally confided.
Labour leadership hopefuls Angela Rayner, Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting have all promised a special Swatch allowance to anyone who's desperate to buy one of these absurdly overpriced toy-like timepieces and who promises to vote Labour in future by-elections.
image from Google Gemini