Category: Democracy

What’s in a name, asked Shakespeare. Some of the star-cross’d lovers of democracy hurtling for a messy end think it’s important. Tory party chairman James Cleverly, for one.

“It’s important that we project the right image,” he waffled, while the BBC interviewer cooed over him. “Thickley is no sort of name for a public figure of my standing. It might project the wrong impression of me, so I changed it to Cleverly. Clever, don’t you think?”

“Oh yes, yes, yes,” purred the interviewer, approaching orgasm. “Don’t stop! Give me everything you’ve got!”

The BBC later denied that standards of journalism have dropped. Cleverly left the building looking like the cat that got the cream.

“Interviews are a piece of cake,” he remarked to LCD Views’ Slightly More Rigorous Than The BBC correspondent later that day. “You can say whatever you like and nobody checks up on you. Very clever, don’t you think?”

We asked about the Tories’ election strategy.

“Easy!” said Thickley. Sorry, Cleverly. “We make lots of promises, backed up with numbers plucked from the ether, and slag off Corbyn. The press laps it up and we get a free pass. Clever, if I say so myself.”

Has anybody else in the Conservative party changed their name as well?

“Priti Patel has changed her name,” said Cleverly. “I know her background, and it’s not very Priti. Her real name is much too long and, well, Indian, which makes it hard for an Englishman to say. Priti suits her like Cleverly suits me.”

The aura of smugness was overpowering. Do you think it’s big and clever to fake websites and pretend to be a factchecking page and to doctor clips of Labour politicians in action?

“That was my idea!” he bubbled enthusiastically. “Brilliant bit of cleverness, I think you’ll agree. Nobody could ever guess that was me! I expect the whole world now thinks that Labour are shit, and it’s all down to clever old me. I’m the Brain of Braintree!”

What’s in a name? A lying deceitful idiot by any other name would stink as bad.

BRITISH TV GOLD : “We can’t let Sturgeon, Swinson, Lucas and whoever else get involved in the general election TV debate,” a Downing Street source told LCD Views today, “if they do Johnson and Corbyn are both likely to get cranky, on camera, and then less people may vote for them, and more may vote for the women. Heaven forbid.”

Whether or not this is the correct decision by the broadcaster, ITV, or by Labour and the Conservatives, is a source of heated debate, even if the courts have agreed they are not breaking broadcasting law.

“Imagine what they would have chosen as the theme tune?” the source shuddered, “probably Wuthering Heights, maybe ABBA? It doesn’t bear thinking about. Women should be seen in politics, but definitely not heard when the big moments come. Just our luck none of those other parties have a man as leader. We’d be forced to debate them. Be poor form not to. Jolly bad show.”

But what have the leaders of the Tory and Labour Parties chosen as the theme music for tonight’s televised debate?

“Rabbit by Chas and Dave,” the source smiled, “the lyrics really hit the nail on the head.”

Especially the lines…

“coz you wont stop talkin,
why dont you give it a rest?,
you got more rabbit than sainsburys,
it’s time you got it off your chest,
now you is just the kinda girl to break my heart in two,
I knew right off when I first clapped my eyes on you,
but how was I to know you’d bend my earholes too?,
with your incessant talking,
you’re becoming a pest“

“Definitely,” the source agreed, “sums it up nicely. Women with informed opinions. Makes you shudder. You’ve seen how flustered both of the men get when they’re faced with them. Could be a polling disaster. Bad enough having to listen to them rabbit on in Parliament. On the rare days these days when it’s actually sitting.”

Like most issues currently on the political landscape, it’s a divisive one. And given that Sturgeon, Swinson and even Lucas potentially hold the keys to Downing Street on December the 13th, thanks to what is likely to be a strong wave of tactical voting this GE, perhaps the men running the old duopoly of UK politics should have been forced to face them. Live. In front of a studio audience…

A PLAGUE ON IN AND ABOUT HIS HOUSES : Outgoing Prime Minister Boris ‘Repressed Intelligence Report’ Johnson hasn’t had the best of weeks on the campaign trail, but the weekend has injected fresh optimism.

“We’ve received another endorsement from a famous feature of the traditional British landscape ,” a Downing Street source told LCD Views, “Yersinia pestis has endorsed the outgoing Prime Minister. This should help our campaign become incredibly infectious.”

The endorsement of the famous ‘Black Death’ comes after various other noteworthy individuals put their backing behind the Tory hopeful.

“Little Tommy ‘Not my real name’ is behind Boris now. That so called historian who denies the holocaust. A bunch of other similar and now one of the greatest mass killers in all of history? I mean, this should be a game changer.”

The Home Office is said to be especially thrilled by the endorsement of the Plague and intends to make the dissemination of it a key policy plank if the Tories retain power in the December national IQ test.

“You wait and see what happens now,” the source went on, “as Boris continues to tour the nation’s primary schools and nurseries, to avoid questions he can’t answer, he’ll be leaving a mark.”

Boils, haemorrhaging, raging fevers, fits of coughing up blood and just uncontrollable levels of scat are now expected to be the hallmarks of a visit by the famous student of technology.

But critics have given an underwhelmed response to the endorsement.

“It’s not exactly an achievement to be endorsed by an incredibly dangerous bacteria that you’re already the political embodiment of, now is it?” one wrote on Twitter, “being endorsed by penicillin would be something to shout about, but not this nonsense.”

We did ask penicillin who it was endorsing and it replied “whoever is likeliest to beat a Brexiter, whatever colour their rosette, constituency by constituency.”

If enough voters take that medicine and swallow it it’s just feasible we might show the plague on all our houses the door on December 12th.

Election fever strikes again as notorious non-Tory Jeremy Corbyn prepares to wreck the economy. Again. This time he wants to re-nationalise the government’s communications arm, the BBC.

This follows the government’s disastrous decision to outsource the BBC to the Taxpayers’ Alliance. Although this places the BBC at the heart of the democratic pro-Brexit message, unfortunately 55 Tufton Street cannot produce money-spinners like David Attenborough documentaries or the weather forecast.

Predictable howls of outrage followed Corbyn’s announcement. The Mail, the Express and the Telegraph blasted the plan in gigantic letters from their news desks at TPA HQ.

BBC bosses are said to be ‘disappointed’ to have to start commuting from Tufton Street to the BBC studios again.

News has become yet another commodity to be bought and sold to the highest bidder. In this case the shadowy albeit filthy rich figures funding the whole Brexit farce.

But re-nationalisation could bring back balance, rigour and fairness. These dangerous socialist notions threaten to undermine the entire fabric of British feudalism.

Former journalist Artie Cull cast an eye over proceedings.

“It’s about time someone took back control of the media!” Cull thundered. “Once reputable and reliable outlets have allowed themselves to print gaudy propaganda and fake news without scruples or fear of comebacks!”

And the BBC has been pushed into the same trap, says Cull. “Look at the evidence!” he shouts, going purple in the face. “Anyone Brexity is given an easy ride. Michael Gove, Iain Duncan Smith, Andrew Fucking Bridgen, all of them are allowed to spout whatever gibberish they like and the BBC just laps it up. That charlatan Farage is on one show or another almost every day. Footage of Boris Johnson cocking up the wreath laying ceremony on Remembrance Day was edited out of the BBC’s highlights package, while the papers made up random outrage about Corbyn. It’s about time some balance was restored!”

In the interests of balance, we are obliged to point out that other biased broadcast media are available.

ALMS FOR BREXIT : High Priest, Cardinal, Bishop and Pope of the Church of Brexit, Nigel “1930’s tribute act” Farage has explained the real reason he stood down his religious militia in Tory held seats for this GE.

“Well, in spite of the media hype no one very much was going to vote for them. You’ve never seen such a bunch of swivel eyed crazies. Christ on a bike! Anyone who still believes in me by now must be pursuing plan-9 from the Planet Zaarg! Now. Now. Let me speak,” Mr Farage explained.

Just how much the mass limited company, zero hour, con economy candidate stand down will benefit Boris Johnson isn’t yet clear. It perhaps makes his brand even more toxic to Tory voters desperately scrambling to find reason to vote for Johnson.

While some marrow deep idiots will see it as a betrayal of the One True Brexit, without actually realising that the man they pinned their hopes on turning out to be a spiv, may suggest the project he embodies is a total con too.

“Now. No. Now,” Mr Farage went on, “Why spend perfectly good money on candidates in a GE campaign when I’ve a penthouse apartment to purchase in Düsseldorf? And besides. After the other morning and the toast, I didn’t have a choice. It was a message sent straight from the Brexit God himself!”

What was that about the toast?

“I was just settled down with a copy of the autobiography of a struggling, early twentieth century, Austrian water colourist to have my boiled egg and soldiers when what did I spy on the toast? Just before I cut it into strips as small as Brexit is cutting rule of law in our society?”

What? Do tell.

“Boris Johnson’s image,” Mr Farage exclaimed, “right there in the toast. And what’s more he was holding real Brexit in his hands! A proper British bent banana! It was a sign. And one I intend to heed.”

Let’s hope the rest of the electorate are heeding the signs too…

The Russian agents feigning interest in a general election are doing a poor job. Lead agent Boris Johnson has even been contradicting himself within a single sentence.

The man hoping to clean up on 12 December has been recently seen trying to wield a mop. This photo opportunity went as well as could be expected, with Johnson merely shifting dirt from one place to another. His attempt to mop up the water went equally well.

Other pathetic attempts to pull wool over the public’s eyes were just as successful. Quasi-Muscovite Kwasi Kwarteng proudly bandied about the opposition’s spending plans without an awareness of his own party’s position. Or at least his paymasters had told him to keep schtumm.

Meanwhile the Kremlin’s house newspaper, the Daily Mail, is busy pushing the angle that an increase in the minimum wage is a great idea, if Sajid Javid says so. Naturally it sets the nation on course to instant bankruptcy whenever Jeremy Corbyn proposes it.

Javid was also wheeled out to prove that the real reds under the bed are blue Russians not Corbyn and co. Slag off the opposition, present nothing in return. The Russians have clearly either failed to get their narrative across, or something got lost in translation.

From the Trots to the tarts. Liz “You are what you eat” Truss has been selecting tarts, joyfully, presumably for her own personal use. What the relevance to the election campaign could be is anyone’s guess. We can be sure that she paid for her tarts using her own roubles.

Vladimir Putin is, as usual, playing inscrutable, but, behind that calm visage, he must be deeply disappointed with the bungling efforts of his low rent puppets. Still, all is not lost, since his funding of Jeremy Corbyn’s wavering stance is doing all the necessary work.

Rumours abound that Putin has bought James Cleverly a new Brexit countdown clock.

IT TAKES ONE TO TANGO : THE CONSERVATIVE AND UNIONIST PARTY has been accused of a copycat strategy today after it reacted to the news of the ‘Unite to Remain’ electoral pacts with a unifying electoral pact strategy of its own.

Speaking through an interpreter at a campaign event in central London today, Tory party leader, Boris ‘there’s nothing to see in that intelligence report’ Johnson, garbled and mumbled, waffled and enthused in a collection of syllables mashed together to form a word salad.

He looked haggard, his hair looked like it was attempting an escape bid, and helpfully no one asked what it feels like to leave your wife and children, and move your young girlfriend into Downing Street. Because we don’t do moral standards in British political life anymore, at least, not under the Conservatives. Just ask serving cabinet ministers, who have been disgraced, resigned and then had their careers resurrected.

Mr Johnson’s statement was separated into its component parts and re-assembled in something akin to speech by the interpreter.

“Those filly fally foondanglies just need a good shagging! Girly swots!” Mr Johnson began, apparently, “they think that like Theseus, baffled in a wool shop by what colour to pick for the jaunt in the maze, we can’t tell our voters which colour to pick. Or even ourselves! But we can! Blue! Blue on blue! Not aquamarine or azure. Tory blue. To that end, like the Gorgon agaze in wonder at her own reflection, we are standing aside anyone vaguely sane within our party and replacing them with guano frenzied idiots!”

The strategy is expected to lead to great gains for Mr Johnson as the electorate in areas as alike as Runnymede or Putney will not need to worry about losing their ‘moderate’ Tory candidate, when they can choose to vote for someone even more exciting, and guaranteed to tow the party line no matter how adrift from anything sensible it becomes.

But in spite of having their strategy stolen by the wrecking ball of standards and society, the Unite to Remain grouping was upbeat.

“It helps our cause,” a source inside the organisation said, “as it will stand us in even sharper relief.”

LCD Views would like to (genuinely) commend the Unite to Remain effort. A twinkling light at the end of a tunnel that is at times long and dark. It stands a chance to go some way to de-toxifying British politics, by showing that parties and can work together in the national interest and take actions to mutual benefit. And to that of the electorate. We would just like to see even more of it…hint hint a certain opposition party who so far isn’t having a bar of it.

You want to GTTO or not?

BOJO THE DANGEROUS CLOWN : Nice work if you can get it as outgoing prime minister Boris Johnson is relieved of the danger of doing any serious work again for the next five weeks.

Since becoming prime minister, back in the summer, Mr Johnson hasn’t been very successful, in spite of having megamind Short Cummings at his disposal. Or being at Short Cummings disposal, whichever way it’s rolling.

But the one thing he has totally nailed is bunking off.

First for the summer recess, so he could get to grips with streaming videos on social media (good thing he took all those technology lessons while mayor!)

Then he prorogued parliament in the hope of both evading scrutiny of the work he wasn’t doing, and to intimidate the Commons.

That didn’t work. Some girly swots saw to that in the Supreme Court.

Still, at least he got to lie in for a few mornings. And he did then get to lawfully prorogue Parliament for a few days. Another well earned rest. Even if the stated reasons for doing it were clearly a sham.

Now he’s free to pursue his hobby of being a work shy blaggard spending other people’s money for five weeks during a GE campaign. Going here and there telling everyone how great he is.

For Mr Johnson that isn’t work, that’s pursuit of what appears to be his favourite distraction, apart from young totty of course! Wahey!

Although it won’t all be pleasure. Somehow he’s got to sit on an intelligence report into foreign interference in UK democracy. He will also have to hope the CPS do nothing with the file on Vote Leave lawbreaking. Oh, and that nothing comes of any of the paused investigations into his actions while Mayor.

But for a man known to have been drawn into a conspiracy to have a journalist beaten up and whose main talent seems to be making and breaking promises, that’s all in a day’s work.

And to think in just a few short weeks some people in this country will still vote for him.

FOCUS ON THE NATIONAL INTEREST : Wish fulfilment in spades today after the leadership of the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties announced a plan to agree electoral pacts for key marginals.

“It’s just common sense,” a spokesman as imaginary as the headline to this article said, “we’ve both been banging on for years now that the most important thing is to get the toxic Tories out of office, so it seemed a bit bloody confusing to people, who aren’t deeply tribal, that as soon as a GE was announced we told each other to get stuffed in no uncertain terms.

“Then many of our social media activists followed suit. It was very divisive and distracting and only helped Boris Johnson. Labour members bashing LibDems all over social media. Libdems bashing Labour. Tories sitting back howling in laughter. Moderate members of Labour and Libdems shaking their heads and wondering which party is sane enough to join next?”

The decision to work together seems certain to reduce Boris Johnson’s chances of gaining a majority to virtually nil.

It will also build on the great strides being made by the Liberal Democrats, Greens, Plaid and others who are already working together to reduce the Tory Party’s chances.

Now Labour has joined the electoral pact alliance Boris looks stuffed.

“It’s just political realism,” the source said, “what’s the point of Labour standing candidates in seats it can not realistically hope to take off the Tories, but the LibDems can? And vice versa? We disagree on a lot of issues, but we can deal with that once the Tories are out and the NHS sale off the table.”

The move is also thought to be grounded in sober realisation of what the failure of all opposition parties to remove the Johnson government, and form a GNU, means.

“We got a little tribal,” the spokesman sighed, “right when we had a chance to topple Johnson. Everyone let their own ambitions cloud their judgements. It wasn’t great. But now we can make amends.”

The move is expected to send shockwaves through the meme factories of both parties, who will now actually have to focus on making emotionally triggering memes just targeting the Tories.

“Look we all know Jeremy is a little bit Brexity. We all know Swinson has a historical voting record that’s a little um, sketchy, in terms of purity? Who gains if we both focus on such matters and not on working together to GTTO?”

A Danger: Unexploded Brexiter warning has been issued in the bosky surroundings of Rayleigh and Wickford. Residents have been advised to stay indoors and avoid the BBC.

The Brexiter, which is believed to date from World War Two, has repeatedly threatened to explode. The latest expected explosion date, 31 October, came and went without incident. But experts say that it could go off without warning at any time.

The army has been called in to take control of the situation. An exclusion zone the size of the constituency has been established, and nobody who is more left wing than Nigel Farage may enter.

The perimeter is being patrolled carefully. Not by aggressive types with guns and dogs, but by gammon hunters waiting for the explosion so they can get a free dinner.

Already some are suggesting that another exclusion zone should surround Andrew Bridgen’s North West Leicestershire constituency. An explosion of mashed potato is imminent, which makes a nice complement to Rayleigh roast gammon.

Brexiter disposal experts have been called in. They aim to defuse the situation by performing a controlled explosion in BBC Essex’s newsroom in the company of Andrew Marr.

In related news, the aforementioned Nigel Farage has been upping the Brexit purity ante again. Drop the deal and we will be your friend, he told Boris Johnson. Johnson, caught between two impossible, incompatible situations of his own making, declined. This incident did, however, set the Rayleigh timebomb ticking again.

“It’s a cock up, a foul up and a stitch up,” spluttered the bomb, causing bystanders to scuttle for cover. “Now the bastard is going to stand against us, split the vote and we will have to stay paying tax!”

With that he clamped his Captain Mainwaring tin hat on his head and stumped off, muttering “stupid boy!”.

If all goes to plan, the next scheduled explosion will be 31 January. Or when we revoke Article 50, whichever happens first.