The report that UK prime minister David Cameron once had sex with a dead pig confirmed what many have long suspected: Britain is run by a cabal of bestially inclined necrophiliacs.

Fortunately, the news was handled sensitively. Had it not been for the unflinching integrity of the British tabloid media, this could easily have ended up in a vortex of self-destructive introspection, leading to awkward questions about how such depraved sickos get to run the country. Debate has remained firmly focused on what really matters: Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s scruffy dressing. Corbyn’s shoddy tie knot and mismatched trousers and jacket at a Battle of Britain memorial have rightly put David Cameron’s porcine transgressions in perspective and helped restore a degree of integrity to public debate.

A pen lid protruding from his pocket proved too much for the agitated Michael Deacon of the Telegraph, while the Sun had the newspaper headline equivalent of a nervous breakdown with “Corb snubs the Queen”. The new Labour leader’s failure to sing God Save the Queen despite being an avowed republican has only confirmed in the minds of many that, like it or not, only pig fuckers can be relied on to run the country responsibly.

Most heroic have been the BBC and Murdoch’s Sky News, both of which have shown the utmost gentlemanly discretion by refusing to report the allegations against Cameron. Elsewhere, headlines such as “Revealed: how Jeremy Corbyn welcomed the prospect of an asteroid ‘wiping out’ humanity”, “Jeremy Corbyn sex dwarf eaten by otters” and “New leader’s potty plan for world peace”, have helped to ensure that the public is not distracted from the real issues: Corbyn’s subversive vegetarian bike riding.

Not surprisingly, reports about the British military preparing for “direct action” in the event Corbyn became prime minister have been met with a shrug.

Yet, while we laugh at the petty outrages and pig loving antics of the establishment, their reactions show how serious they are about screwing over the mass of the population.

Unapologetically championing workers’ rights, opposing austerity and privatisations, rejecting the right wing class collaboration of modern social democracy and taking a stand against militarism are political positions that simply will not be tolerated by the ruling class today.

When not met with derision and ridicule, they are deemed legitimate basis for coup attempts, extreme character assassination or ousting by other means.

By the same token, the networks of the powerful support and defend those who are prepared to impose a neoliberal agenda, whatever the bankruptcy of their character or actions. That the Conservative Party is a glorified paedophile ring with a series of grotesque rituals that would earn most ordinary people a lengthy jail sentence rather than a parliamentary seat seems not to bother (or surprise) anyone much in the British establishment.

Nor does their hypocrisy. Cameron asked of Britain after the 2010 riots, “[Do] we have the determination to confront the slow-motion moral collapse that has taken place in parts of our country these past few generations?” This was not a much needed moment of introspection but an attack on the thousands of young people who for a brief moment dared to question the right of the rich to own everything.

Jeremy Corbyn is the political expression of the growing number not prepared to bow down before power and make endless sacrifices for the sake of the rich. For that reason, the powerful are determined to destroy or neutralise him.

Let’s hope that the fact that being romantically linked with a dead farm animal is proving to be less of a barrier to a lucrative career in politics than appearing to care about the conditions of life for working class people fuels yet more determined resistance.