Message to the front line: “I say, you fine young men and women at the sharp end of the NHS, you’re laying down your lives for England! Jolly good show! When the War On Coronavirus is won – and England WILL win – we will remember your sacrifice. Whew! Spiffing! Did I leave anything out?”
Not bad for a first draft, but it does lack references to Spitfires and the Blitz Spirit.
Boris Johnson is to write to everybody working in the NHS to thank them for dying of CV-19, so nobody else has to. The envelopes will be sealed by Johnson’s virusy fingers, and the stamps licked by his virusy tongue. Recipients are advised to wash the letters in soap and water for 20 seconds before opening.
The letter is being cobbled together by whichever people in Number Ten are still free of the virus and at least semi literate. Lacking the guidance of head honcho Dominic Cummings, the letter is rather freeform and stylistically inconsistent. So no change there.
Amidst the waffle and the non sequiturs rests the phrase “taking one for the team”. Rumours suggest that Johnson himself inserted this particularly offensive metaphor, thinking it amusing.
Cummings would not have permitted this. He keeps Johnson on a very tight leash, although occasionally random wiff waff does slip out. However, Cummings was last seen loping away from the Downing Street back door and straight into self isolation. Maybe Carrie Symonds was tired of being the third wheel in the relationship.
NHS staff are utterly delighted to be congratulated in this way. “I think it’s fantastic to get such high profile recognition!” gushed nurse Tori Plant. Her remarks were later discredited since she was discovered to be a Tory plant.
Most NHS employees would rather have some decent PPE, but then some people do like to whinge on about health and safety. They have already had a round of applause, what more do they want of us?
Meanwhile, the foot soldiers on the front line ponder the old lie: Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori.