LEARNING FROM OTHERS IS HERD : DOWNING STREET must have an eye on a general election after Covid-19 is beaten back by Blitz spirit and British pluck.
Early this morning the office of whoever is prime minister dove into the media surf with the aim of swimming right over the foam of criticism crashing against the laboured rocks of public health.
“For too long we have been unable to control our borders,” a Boris Johnson impersonator declared, “this has meant we simply could not stop people walking right into the United Kingdom carrying Covid-19. And then, like an invisible mugger, Dominic Cummings stole the message of public health right out of our pockets. And not only that, many caught a bad flu as a result.”
But a new initiative will spare Mr Cumming’s blushes in future.
“Island Britain will see the entire country transformed into an island!”
The plan seems to involve spending £350m per week to cut off the land bridges that have joined the UK to continental Europe since prehistory.
“In this way we will finally be an independent sovereign, island nation who can quarantine arrivals to our shores. It will not matter if they sneak past Nigel Farage on the beaches of Kent or land in one of the notoriously low security welcome cottages called airports.”
But critics have been quick to ask why the award to supply the earth movers and diggers for the project has been gifted to a prominent Tory donor without contest? By way of using an obscure statutory instrument introduced in 2015?
“This is Brexit Britain. We do things differently here. Outcomes are unimportant.”