London Mayoral Candidate Comparing Self to Leicester is Only Thing More Far-Fetched Than Leicester Winning the League

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports UK.

With the London mayoral election mere days away, Zac Goldsmith may have finally struck a decisive blow against bitter rival Sadiq Khan. After running a campaign built on ineffectual scaremongering, ill-judged identity politics, desperate attempts to link Khan to violent terrorism and the pretence of liking Bollywood films, Goldsmith has now, at last, found a tactic by which he can overcome Khan's dangerous brand of unexceptional decency. Zac has tapped into the national zeitgeist, and found an interest with which everyone can identify.

He has decided to show us all that he follows the football – the working man's game – by comparing himself to Leicester City.

Speaking to LBC Radio this morning, Goldsmith began his interview with a completely unprompted reference to Leicester's title win. "I'm hoping to do a Leicester City here, to zoom in from behind and win on May 5th," he told Nick Ferrari, in an outburst of spontaneous and in-no-way-scripted football chat.

You can imagine Zac Goldsmith, in no way being told by an exhausted aide to definitely, definitely, make reference to the fact that Leicester were confirmed as Premier League champions on Monday evening. Zac Goldsmith, in no way being told that he must make himself more personable to the common man by making an off-the-cuff quip about the footie, with its goalies and its offside rule and its wonderful knack of distracting average people from the crushing weight of social inequality. Zac Goldsmith, in no way screaming at his Addison Lee driver to hurry the fuck up and get him to his fucking interview, before in no way rehearsing a comparison between himself and the Leicester – it is the Leicester, isn't it? – and in no way being told to avoid the temptation of tenuously linking Riyad Mahrez to a fundamentalist cleric from Tooting.

It's all perfectly natural. Zac Goldsmith loves a bit of footie, and nobody can say otherwise.

In fairness, the comparison between Goldsmith and Leicester is highly appropriate. Much like the current Leicester team, Goldsmith is a perennial underdog. Born into a family worth billions of pounds, brought up in an 18th-century Georgian house set on six acres of land and educated at Eton College, Goldsmith is the closest thing the Conservative Party has to Oliver Twist. He has defied all the odds, worked his way up through good, hard labour, got his hands dirty working for a series of think tanks and now earned that loftiest of prizes, the right to be the Conservatives' choice for London mayor.

Plus, much like those Leicester lads, he can't help himself when it comes to drinking a few pints of delicious beer.

Leicester fans more nervous than Zac Goldsmith in a pub #LCFC pic.twitter.com/PLvU7UCBNE
— Toby Earle (@TobyonTV) May 1, 2016

Forget the fact that Leicester haven't "zoomed in from behind" to win the league, and have actually topped the table for large portions of the season. Zac Goldsmith doesn't like to get hung up on the details. At the end of the day – much like Leicester – Goldsmith is the people's champion, the Conservative billionaire standing up for the little guy. He might currently have a lower approval rating than genital herpes, but that's about to change.

He's established himself as the Leicester City of right-wing politics, and won our hearts in the process.