Spectator competition winners: To leave, or not to leave — that is the question: politicians soliloquise

The invitation to compose a Shakespearean-style soliloquy that a contemporary politician might have felt moved to deliver was inspired by Aryeh Cohen-Wade’s imagining, in the New Yorker, how Donald Trump might perform the bard’s soliloquies: ‘Listen – to be, not to be, this is a tough question, OK? Very tough…’ The Donald kept an uncharacteristically low profile this week, with most choosing British politicians. Theresa May and Boris Johnson in particular had plenty to get off their chests. You drew on Hamlet ‘O that this too too shrouding garb would drop…’; Macbeth ‘Is this a compromise I see before me…?’; and Richard III ‘Now is the exit of our discontent…’ to impressive effect; well done, one and all. Honourable mentions go to Naomi Smith and Martin Parker. The winners take £25. Bill Greenwell snaffles the extra fiver.

Bill Greenwell/Jeremy Hunt Jeremio: Though I be pale, and far beyond the pale, As artless in my art as rural clown, Yet shall I hitch my waggon to that she As hums at hems, and lights on leather hose With half-conceal’d excitement.