Category: Austerity

The world’s first vaguely convincing prototype android, the TM-1, is due to be withdrawn shortly. Its designers are disappointed with it, and have identified flaws which mean they will have to go back to the drawing board.

Head designer Art Uditu explained the problems. “There are various major problems with the TM-1,” he explained. “There are many minor faults developing, but the three most serious ones are causing a lot of headaches for our maintenance chaps.”

Uditu listed the three main flaws – voice, facial expression, and odd bodily movements. “The voice chip is down to a small selection of random remarks, like ‘We will deliver on the result of the referendum’, and ‘Let me be very clear about this’,” he said. “The algorithm which creates realistic facial expressions has basically crashed, and the TM-1 moves like a mating giraffe in a high wind.”

Attempts to dance or curtsey have also contributed to damaged motor function bearings. This means that the TM-1 could be temporarily housed in a wheeled metal shell. “Given that the android looks more and more like Davros every day, that is a logical step,” remarked Uditu sagely.

Uditu was quick to point out that the TM-1 would not be equipped with extermination capacity. This, he said, would be unnecessary given the TM-1’s indirect attempts to exterminate the UK population through food and medicine shortages.

Meanwhile, robots and androids from across the universe were busy denying any kinship with the TM-1.

“It’s like comparing an abacus to a spaceship,” grumbled Marvin the paranoid android. “It hurts just thinking down to its level. I’m not getting you down, am I?”

“I wouldn’t be seen dismantled with it,” claimed C-3PO haughtily. “And that’s from someone whose best friend is a bleeping dustbin!”

Rumours abound of the existence of another AI prototype, codenamed JC-2, which suffers from chronic power failures.

The TM-1 is due to be decommissioned on 29 March 2019. Uditu is working on a replacement, but is having trouble obtaining supplies from the EU.

“Hey Joe, are we nearly there yet?” asked Mary. She was anxious because her contractions were becoming more frequent. It was going dark, and still the little town, his ancestral home, was nowhere to be seen.

“Nearly there,” grumbled Joe. He, too, was tired, and irritated that his fiancée was pregnant, and that the baby wasn’t his. “Holy Spirit, my arse,” he thought to himself. “There’s a cottage hospital on the edge of the town, I’ll take you there,” he said, out loud this time.

But when they finally arrived, they discovered that the maternity unit had been closed as an efficiency measure.

Mary was desperate, so they ducked into an empty stable. The powerful security light came on, but nevertheless Mary gave birth in relative privacy. She wrapped her son in a blanket and laid him in a feeding trough. Then she crashed out on a bale of hay while Joe went outside for a fag.

Immediately the sound of singing filled the air. “Hark! The herald angels sing! Glory to…” carolled an angelic voice. “Oh hi, Joe!” said the voice, as he stuck his head out of the stable door. “Angela! Hi!” he replied. “Err, could you get us some help? Mary’s just had her baby!” Angela flew away to spread the Good News.

Shortly afterwards there came a knock on the door and two Shepherds came in. Mr and Mrs Shepherd were old family friends. “We were just washing our socks by night,” remarked Mr Shepherd, “when Angela Lord came down and told us about the baby.”

“Why didn’t you go to the hospital?” asked Mrs Shepherd. “Closed,” said Joe. “There was no room at the Infirmary.”

Soon after that, a coach load of old people from Norwich stopped, seeing the bright light above the place where the baby lay. They all cooed over the little boy, and agreed that Jesus was a lovely name. Three of them searched among their bags and gave him gifts.

Then the old people returned to Norwich by another route, because they had been warned that the A14 was closed for resurfacing over Christmas.

Angela poked her head around the door again. “Sorry guys, but the chap who owns the stable is on his way,” she said. “If he catches you, he’ll kill you! I’d get out, if I were you.”

So they scarpered, and lived happily ever after.

£2bn is being released for no deal Brexit contingencies. It is no longer your choice whether to send this vast sum of money to the EU, or to spend it on the NHS. Your so-called government is spending it to cover up its own failure.

Some will go to replace the EU grants which will be lost. Some to pay for the army to quell riots. Even more will go to border guards, who will ensure that hordes of brown people will be able to leave the UK, but not enter.

“This is not the action of a callous, incompetent government,” claims Chancellor Philip Hammond, somewhat disingenuously. “Contingency planning against a disaster entirely of the government’s creation is prudent in the extreme.”

Hammond denies that his government is irresponsible, stating that to admit that Brexit is a policy doomed to failure, weakening the UK as a nation and reducing its citizens to vassal subjects, is simply not possible. “The £2bn fund is to reassure The People and restore their faith in their glorious leaders,” he said, shiftily.

One or two MPs tried to argue with Hammond. However, they backed down when he suggested that they come round to Number 11 for an Evening With Spreadsheets followed by a session of Death By PowerPoint.

A lone madwoman on College Green, Faye Spalm, was one of the few people daring to voice an opposing view. “This government couldn’t give a toss!” she yelled. Spalm is unable to trace her ancestry back to Bronze Age Britain, hence her identity as a Remainer. “These f&*%ers made a choice!” she screamed. “They are choosing to Brexit despite massive damage to our economy! They are choosing to punish the poor and the unfortunate for being poor and unfortunate! It’s a choice made simply to mollify a few highly vocal f@#*ing idiots! It’s disgusting!”

Hammond ran away, frit, to give the hard-working Magic Money Tree another shake.

Or, as she might have said, let them eat potatoes. When the chips are down, you must Battenburg down the hatches.

Patel is proposing to use starving Irish people as a Brexit bargaining chip. The failure to deliver the Brexit that The People allegedly voted for is of course the fault of the Irish.

“Everything is always blamed on us, to be sure,” grumbled Irish baker Pat O’Kayke. “But the big bollix is talking nonsense, so she is. The English can take their feckin’ baked beans and stick them where the sun don’t shine. And I don’t mean Ireland! Top o’the morning to ye!”

Patel was unrepentant. “I said cake, and I meant cake,” she said. “Cake means cake, and you can have your cake and eat it. I would have expected the bloody bog-trotters to be a bit more appreciative, after all the English have done for them!”

She later claimed that her remarks had been taken out of context.

“I know that cake doesn’t grow on trees,” she clarified. “Except magic money trees, but they are a protected species which only grow on unicorn reserves.”

The Irish response was emphatic. “Who needs unicorns, when you have leprechauns?” said O’Kayke. “We will just not let the man buy any more Guinness. They’ll come round soon enough. In the mean time, bottoms up. Slainte!”

Patel was horrified. “There will be no more Marmite leaving our ports until the EU relents and repents,” Patel shrieked. “I have a gun pointed towards my head, and I will fire repeatedly until I get what The British People voted for! You have been warned!”

Marie Antoinette would have been proud. Her misattributed misjudgement, both myopic and misanthropic, was a mistake. Or maybe a pisstake?

History will tell us. But history is written by the winners, they say, and nobody is at all sure about who the winners are any more.

LCD Views has the inside track on the latest budget. Philip Hammond has no more idea of the impact of Brexit than anyone else. So instead he said, here is what’s left in the kitty, there’s no more before next April, sort yourselves out, it’s what people on Universal Credit have to do.

As for borrowing, options are now limited. Hammond himself shrugs his shoulders when confronted with the question. “Nobody will lend us money any more,” he complains. “The IMF just laughs, and our fall-back option, Wonga, went bust after we defaulted the last time.”

So you are effectively washing your hands of the whole affair? “Too right!” he says. “Let them squabble among themselves for what little is left, before the UK files for bankruptcy. Budget means budget!”

What about the fabled magic money tree? “It’s autumn,” observed Hammond. “Its leaves have fallen, all the magic money has been harvested and squirreled away offshore somewhere. I think it’s dying too. There is no sign of the green shoots of recovery.”

But couldn’t you raise taxes to make up the shortfall? “Most people will pay more than they earn after Brexit anyway,” he replied. “Except for the people who can afford it. They will pay less.”

That’s a scandal, surely? “Yes, but think of the headlines,” Hammond counters. “If we make Rupert Murdoch pay one penny more in taxation, his papers will make sure they bring down this government and replace it with an even more incompetent one.”

He who pays the piper calls the tune. This particular tune must be Money For Nothing.

The country is more divided than ever. The old call of ‘no taxation without representation’ has been updated. People now have one or the other. That’s the true Brexit Dividend.

As the UK sinks into self-imposed oblivion, at least we can comfort ourselves with the thought that we took back control of our destiny.

The Secretary of State for Working Your Fingers To The Bone has revealed yet another Brexit Dividend. An increased death rate, while naturally regrettable, would take some of the pressure off the beleaguered NHS.

“Cutting Universal Credit for poorer families has to be done,” remarked McVey candidly. “It is the only thing these people understand. Austerity means sink or swim, and we require a certain percentage to sink in order for austerity to produce the desired results.”

Her Department, the Ministry for Work-Shy Idlers, has forced through the changes. McVey is proud of her achievements. “The simplest way to cure poverty is simply to remove poor people from the population,” she explains. “Off the mortal coil, into the food chain, that’s my motto.”

So, work until you drop, them provide a nutritious meal for your family? “That’s right!” she confirms. “We expect Britain to be self-sufficient in gammon by Brexit Day.”

The Ministry also administers retired people. McVey has overall responsibility under her secondary role as Secretary of State for Pillaging Pensions. “It is a given that we are in favour of the small state,” she stated. “State pensions work by stockpiling funds, which could be better applied elsewhere, like on consultancy fees as we sell off the NHS piecemeal. This initiative, which must be successful, will only succeed if there is a drastic reduction in the number of patients requiring treatment.”

Surely McVey is impinging upon the work of the Health Secretary? “No, not at all,” McVey counters. “This is an example of our cross-departmental work, in which I tell the vacuous placeholder at Health how many patients he can afford to treat in the foreseeable future.”

Are you announcing a quota system for the NHS? “In effect, yes I am,” she confirmed. “Certain hospitals have been over-providing for so long that they are in negative equity. This means that they will be forbidden to provide any NHS treatment for several years. The hospitals will be mothballed and the staff unfortunately let go, although consultants will still be able to invoice them for admin fees.”

And if you get ill? “Not my problem. We all have to go some time.”

Michael Gove has gone back to basics. Scavenging through garbage is a return to being hunter-gatherers, he claims.

LCD Views’ Talking Rubbish correspondent stopped washing and shaving for a few months, donned a filthy duffel coat, borrowed a dog on a string, and went to see the man himself.

“Searching for food is a primal human instinct!” Gove slobbered. “And we all know that supermarkets waste food. Adequate means adequate. Put the two together. It’s a complete no-brainer!”

We suggested, tentatively, that the idea was a particularly brainless one. To our surprise, Gove agreed.

“I discovered the idea while rifling through Jacob Rees-Mogg’s gilt-edged waste parchment basket,” he drooled. “No brain work, but some highly effective recycling! I think you will find that we have very few original ideas, it saves a lot of effort.”

We live in a prosperous first world country, we said. Yet you conjure up images of starving children scouring rubbish dumps for items to eat or sell. Why?

“We will all have to tighten our belts for a short while,” Gove dribbled. “Thirty, fifty or a hundred years, that’s all. You must keep on thinking of the bigger picture. Freedom, sovereignty and a golden future! And we start by searching out nuggets of gold on our own doorsteps. There’s gold in them thar garbage heaps!”

We put it to Gove that simply redistributing surplus food to the hungry would be a more effective way to deal with the problem.

“No, no, no, not at all,” he oozed. “That’s charity, which leaves no room for profit, which is creeping socialism for a creeping Jesus like you, which is very very bad. This way does more for my green credentials!”

You will be suggesting that families send their children up chimneys next!

“Ooh! Thank you!” he slimed. “Note to self: Families can only apply for Universal Credit if they can prove that their children have spent 16 hours a week up a chimney. Lunch?”

The kebab, abandoned last night on top of the dog poo bin, topped with a sprinkling of leaves and seasoned with rainfall, suddenly seemed quite appealing.

Jacob Rees-Mogg has come up trumps again. In the face of fears over loss of employment and fuel embargoes, His Mogginess has found a remarkable answer.

“These worries aren’t Project Fear, they are Project Opportunity! he crowed. “I have a solution which is as elegant as my Sunday attire. Each faithful Brexiter will be able to employ four stout yeomen. He will pay them using his Brexit Dividend. These yeomen will cheerfully transport the faithful Brexiter to wherever he needs to be.”

They will still need to be fed and watered, though.

“Naturally,” replied Moggy, cattily. “With all the crops being unharvested, due to the regrettable shortage of diesel and prohibition of immigrant workers, one of the four yeomen will be despatched to the fields to forage. The remaining three can bear his share of the burden, and rejoice!”

Rees-Mogg had another ace up his immaculately tailored sleeve. “Naturally, we will also see a renaissance in traditional craftsmen,” he claimed. “For example, woodworkers. Carpenters. Cartwrights and wheelwrights. Constructing traditional litters and carriages!”

What about distribution of imports? Assuming there will be any.

“A lorry has, what, twenty horsepower?” Jacob floundered. “That means, twenty faithful serfs with a horse and cart can be sent to Dover to bring home his Master’s share of the goods. The horses can graze the 13 miles of hard shoulder along the M20, and the manure can be collected and sold!”

So much for the disenfranchised menfolk. What about the women?

“The women will do what women have always done,” replied Rees-Mogg, sighing with relief, on firmer ground now. “They will stay at home, create delicious meals using only grass and mud, and die gratefully in childbirth.”

So the wheel of fortune turns. What goes around comes around. The non-industrial revolution is almost upon us. We got our feudalism back. God bless you M’Lord.

Celebrity chefs up and down the country are rushing to publish cook books focusing on post-Brexit budget cooking, in time for the Christmas market,  LCD Views can reveal.

According to information passed to LCD Views’ gastronomy correspondent, Gaz Patchio, those racing to cash in on the predicted post Brexit demand for austerity cuisine include TV chefs, Delia Smith, Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson as well as late lamented globe totting soused chef Keith Floyd.

A representative for Delia Smith confirmed that the much loved septuagenarian, billionaire football club owner is preparing a book entitled “A Feast for Brexit”, that will focus on the absolute basics required to survive in a country ravaged by food shortages, rationing, riots, famine, plague and starvation.

“She is preparing step by step guides to preparing such survival staples as Stone Soup, Hard Tack, Iron Rations, Ship’s Biscuit and Porridge, as well as new “economy” twists on green salad – made with grass and leaves, “Bread and Butter Pudding” – made without bread or butter, “Beef Wellington”, without the beef but with real wellingtons, and of course “Eggs over Easy”, which trust me, without the eggs is an absolute doddle to prepare,” she explained.

“Obviously in post-Brexit Britain meat will be at a premium so the only meat recipes included are those using animals we believe housewives will be able to forage for themselves such as “Toad in the Hole” – made with real toads, “Hot Dogs” – using parts of real dogs, and pies made from four and twenty blackbirds,” she added explaining that there would of course be a measurements guide to help scale down volumes as starvation kicks in and families become smaller.

Commenting on Oliver’s latest literary plans one of “Jamie’s people” commented: “Gor blimey, wicked, pukka innit, lovely jubbly, nice pressie…” before being summarily sacked.

A spokesman for Nigella Lawson confirmed that her new book, “Nigella’s Red, White and Blue Brexit Feast” will include some recipes aimed at lower budgets but will primarily focus on making the best of new ingredients that become available.

“She has already created quite a splash inviting British cooks to dive in at the deep end with her much publicised “Chicken Swimming Pool”, recipe using chlorinated factory chicken from the US, and its more upmarket variant “Chicken Lido”, but she felt it was time to air some new recipes, in time for Christmas” he said.

Central to the new book will be a complete guide to preparing the ideal spread for the festive season.

“Frankly everyone is a bit tired of chomping on boring old turkey for days, so why not splash out and chomp down IN Turkey for days – you’d be surprised how cheap it is to rent a private jet for the flight out, and villas on the Turkish Riviera are very reasonable out of season,” he smirked, pointing out that as a net food exporter Turkey won’t be suffering any post Brexit shortages.

A suggestion eagerly seconded by pukka tucker maker Oliver who pointed that if post Brexit food prices soar too high, starving Brits could do worse than fly themselves off to the med coast where they can feast on fresh cheap produce in abundance.

“Assuming post Brexit, the EU will give them a visa,” he accepted.

Questioned by reporters as to whether their rush to cash in on post Brexit food shortages might not be seen as being “in bad taste” and whether they might want to help their starving country folk by donating to food banks or helping out at “soup kitchens” all were in agreement.

“As a practising Catholic and labour voter, of course I believe strongly in the importance of charity but I’ve already donated a whole loaf and two fishes to my local food bank and if they can’t make that go round, well the people have spoken,” explained Delia.

Jamie Oliver too was quick to point out the sterling work he has already put in banging on about healthy diets for kids in a whole list of sponsorship and promotion deals and of course through his million selling cookbooks.

“Get in there with yer bookshop, whack it on the counter, a quick drizzle of Visa and a dash of PIN – sorted,” he smiled.

Nigella for her part pointed out that as the daughter of former conservative chancellor Nigel Lawson, famed for his tax cuts for the rich and budgetary austerity, the idea of giving away, money, food or even time to the poor was completely anathema to her.

“We must all make the best of what we have, and people should learn to help themselves,” she said, adding that of course she didn’t mean help themselves from supermarket shelves, because they would of course already have been long emptied.

The final word on post Brexit culinary austerity though, comes from late lamented globe trotting gastronome and TV star, Keith Floyd, included for the sole reason that being long dead he can’t sue for libel.

“I think Jonathan Swift perfectly outlined the options for the poor in his famous essay, “A Modest Proposal”,” he explained, quoting from memory:

“A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout.”

“Although obviously some juicy red onions and fresh plum tomatoes diced and fried with generous handfulls of fresh herbs and the juice of a lime wouldn’t go amiss,” he snorted, reaching for the bucket of red wine.