CLENCH AND RELEASE : RAPTURE across the land today with the news that great leader, Boris de piffle Johnson, has mailed one free sheet of toilet paper to all UK households.
The paper, described by a Downing Street ‘source’ as “high grade, capable of absorbing extreme quantities of BS”, is a gift to an anxious nation in its hour of need.
The estimated cost of £38 million ensures that traditional British methods of communication continue in spite of the plague. Royal Mail employees are thought to be especially pleased.
“This will reassure everyone that Mr Johnson is still leading the country in its hours of need, in spite of being unwell,” the source added, “Mr Johnson will urge everyone to do as he says, not what he does, given that an inability to socially isolate has caused the prime minister, and health secretary, to contract CV-19 in the first place.”
But of course there’s always critics, with some suggesting that digital media and television would have served just as well to mass communicate that the UK is no longer doing herd immunity, now that the herd is infected.
“Look, what are you most worried about? People dying who would have died one day anyway? The inability to react swiftly to fast moving events, given that every policy decision has to take into account the defence of Brexit? The failure to prepare the NHS properly in the months leading up to the crisis, in spite of President Xi of China phoning the prime minister in January. The lack of WHO compliant PPE and ventilators? The fact that we’re set for a potential fresh food crisis in the summer due to lack of farm labour, and the baffling lack of Brexiters stepping up for field work? The use of nudge theory to combat a virus? The lies over the EU procurement scheme for medical supplies? The failure to release the Russia report? The apparent long grassing of the Arcuri investigation? Not knowing who paid for the prime minister’s holiday in Mustique? The apparent fiddling of CV-19 death stats in the manner of unemployment statistics? Or that you haven’t personally heard yet from the prime minister via a letter?”
As to what NHS workers, many still insufficiently safeguarded against infection, to the point where some have started dying, should do when they receive the toilet paper? The source has this to say :
“On the reverse of the paper there will be printed instructions for how to use origami to turn the letter into a medical face mask. We really are doing whatever it takes.”