Category: Democracy

GLOBAL BRITONS! GET YOUR MAPS OUT AND YOUR MARKER PENS BECAUSE AUSTRIA HAS JOINED SWITZERLAND ON THE LIST OF COUNTRIES THAT DO NOT EXIST.

10 Downing Street has reacted swiftly today to the news that the Austrian Chancellor has ordered elections, because elected politicians are suspected of being corrupted by foreign interference.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-europe-48320983

“We have lately been receiving queries regarding a non-existent country’s decision to have a fresh ballot because of suspected Russian interference in the electoral process. This has no application in the United Kingdom because the Austria does not exist and we can learn nothing there. So let’s have no more talk about it. Our country is united behind the result of a our rigorously conceived and administered plebiscite in 2016 and all now want the result, whatever it was, delivered.”

But while the stance from our country’s seat of power is adamant that the country concerned does not exist, behind closed doors there are whispers that this is not true and we should extend the hand of friendship and ask for advice.

“John Humphry’s could give them classes on how to handle votes with suspected foreign interference,” an insider told LCD Views, “Rory Stewart could assist as John’s TA. He could tell the Austrians that you just make up the numbers you want to support whatever argument, or outcome, you desire and ignore the foreign cash. This could be done with a series of slides while John shouts BUT THE PEOPLE HAVE DECIDED at the Austrians. It’s pretty straightforward. They’re a small country. It’s no surprise they’ve gotten confused. The mother of parliaments should help out.”

It’s believed cross party talks have now started in secret on how to handle the matter, in case too many people in the UK start not only believing that Austria does exist, but that also we should heed their way of dealing with political corruption, because they do a lot of it.

“Labour aren’t confirming they are talking to Downing Street about how to help out with this, but I have heard that if they are, they are insistent that an election should both be held and not held in the face of foreign interference.”

We at LCD Views say good luck to the Austrians! Even though you don’t exist! And hope we can learn non-existent lessons from your non-existent existence. Thank you.

MAKING A MARK : LCD VIEWS has heard today from a man who is choosing who to vote for in this week’s EU parliament elections based on a colour wheel.

“It’s not an exact science,” he started by telling us, which almost led to us stopping the interview at the start.

“But I figure if I imagine various party colours combined and see what that gives me it helps narrow down my choice for the ballot box this Thursday.”

So it’s not a scientific method then and we can not advocate it?

“What colours combine to make what colours is a matter of fact,” he hit back, “if you’re going to be so sniffy why are you wasting your time interviewing me?”

You asked us to speak to you!

“So? You didn’t have to,” he shrugged, “can we just get on with it?”

Please.

“Okay. So it works like this. I feel a little bit torn about who to vote for so I look at the wheel and imagine the party logo colours mixed together,” he explained, “so if I want to vote for Labour, but I don’t like their leadership’s pro-Brexit policy then I simply imagine Labour red mixed with the colour of the party which most strongly advocates Brexit.”

So red and purple?

“Yes. Which gives you UKIP’s colours.”

Oh.

“I know, right? Same result if you mix red and a lighter blue. You end up at Brexit.”

The colours could be accused of undermining the leader…

“The colours are essentially Tory shills. Even though if you mix blue and blue you get Tory and so Brexit too.”

So what if you want to vote against Brexit? How do you use your method to choose?

“Well, you mix yellow and green you get a yellowish green or a greenish yellow.”

So anti-Brexit and action on climate change?

“That’s right. You just mix in the amount of either colour you like. So that’s narrowed it down to either Libdems, Greens, SNP or Plaid for me.”

This is an excellent method. But what about if you mix Change UK’s black and white?

“You get grey? Which seems to fit. They may need to change their logo for future elections if they want to change the system.”

But doesn’t blue and yellow get your green?

“It did get you moving there between 2010 and 2015. But that all stopped once the yellow was removed. It also got you progressive social changes, well, till the yellow was stripped out. And before you go on about the economics, red and yellow in 2010 was going to get you austerity too. But you would have had orange, which suggests all round it would have been better in the long run. It definitely couldn’t have made purple!”

Well, thank you for your time. I think I’ll use this to decide who to vote for on Thursday.

“I would have thought someone as opinionated as yourself already has.”

You’re right, but this isn’t a party political broadcast, so we’re not declaring what we’re going to do.

VOTE YELLOW OR GREEN OMFG VOTE YELLOW OR GREEN.

“What was all that shouting for?”

Nothing. Thank you for your time. Good luck with your colour wheel.

HOW MANY HATS CAN YOU FIT IN A RING: THE TORY MP FOR MAIDENHEAD is the latest to confirm she will stand for election as the new Tory party leader, when the leadership contest kicks off in June.

“I have to go for it,” she told LCD Views, in an exclusive interview, “I don’t want to be the only Tory MP who doesn’t put themselves forward.”

But why go for the leadership now?

“I want to offer the party, indeed the entire United Kingdom, strong and stable leadership,” the Maidenhead MP revealed, “our country is in crisis. It is deeply divided. I believe I can unify, by building on the outstanding work of the current leader.”

And what to do with the legacy of Theresa May, in the immediate, will be a pressing issue for the next prime minister.

“I suspect she won’t be able to pass her Withdrawal Agreement, prior to being frogmarched out of office by a bunch of swivel eyed nostalgia freaks who dabble in shorting the pound, so I will take up the baton and get it through parliament.”

So a continuity candidate?

“Very much so. In the fullness of time historians will judge Ms May’s premiership properly,” the Maidenhead MP is certain, “right now, she’s a strong woman doing a difficult job with just the right amount of xenophobia.”

But critics within the party have hit out at the Maidenhead MP’s decision to put her hat in the ring.

“I don’t see how she can stand for the leadership when she’s the one standing down?” Lord Tinpot asked.

She’s wearing a false moustache, we informed the peer.

“Oh well, that’s different then. I always wanted Ms May to carry the can for Brexit, so I will support the MP for Maidenhead in fulfilling Ms May’s legacy.”

We’d ask who you will vote for, but unless you’re part of the 0.6% of the UK population that is a member of the Conservative Party, you won’t be asked.

The two main political parties are neck-and-neck in the polls. Both are straining desperately for the lower hand as oblivion beckons.

Neither has realised that Brexit is like a millstone around their neck-and-neck. They struggle through each day, just to wake up where they started. The solution, obviously, is to insist that they, alone, can be trusted with Brexit. The wooden spoon is their ultimate prize.

It is as though Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn have agreed to go on a day trip to Alton Towers. They both queued up to go on their favourite ride – Oblivion. Only this time, the rollercoaster won’t stop, but will crash, along with their traditional vote.

Traditional voter Mark Withercross gave his opinion. “I have always voted for one of the two main parties,” he said. “But I’m not saying which! It’s a secret between me and the ballot box. Anyway, these days there’s precious little difference between them, is there?”

Good point. So which way are you going to vote in the EU election?

“Don’t know, there’s too much choice, isn’t there?” said Withercross. “A vote for the Brexit Party is a vote for a lazy bugger to do sod all while we pay for them. Chuka and the ChUKs have more party names than policies. So it’s Green,or Lib Dem, or an independent. Bloody hell, there’s a sentence I never expected to say!”

Withercross is typical of many voters for whom their preferred party’s handling of Brexit has forced them to vote elsewhere. Not for them the adrenaline rush of a ride on a fearsome theme park attraction, or leaping off a cliff edge.

All we need now is for Barry Gardiner to claim that winning fewer seats than the Tories is a victory, because the winner is determined by golf rules.

The race for the bottom is well under way. The Tories and Labour are nearing terminal velocity as they tailspin to oblivion.

DOING ONE THING WHILE SAYING ANOTHER : Campaigners for another EU referendum were feeling buoyant today after prime minister Theresa May reaffirmed her opposition to one.

“You know if she keeps saying it won’t happen then it will,” said Mr Demos, who has been working tirelessly to get a confirmatory vote on the books, before any Brexit occurs, “if only she had repeated ad nauseam that ‘Go Home’ vans would be rolled out, then you know they would never have happened. It’s the things she doesn’t talk about that you need to watch, not the ones she does.”

The confirmation wasn’t direct, but nothing ever is with Theresa May, but came about after a spokesman insisted that she would not do it, not even to get Labour to put both feet into the flaming bag of shit called the WA with her, rather than just one as they currently have.

“She’ll do what she needs to to get her deal back to parliament for a fourth time,” Mr Demos was certain, “so it can be defeated for a fourth time. That will set it up for her to have a fifth go. Wait, how many votes has the public had on Brexit since May came back with her deal?”

The knack of stating definitely what will and will not happen on her watch, then doing the reverse, has become a standard feature of Ms May’s time in Downing Street.

“This is why the Tories are frothing at the mouth so hard over the leadership,” Mr Demos adds, “she keeps saying she’ll go soon, so you know that means she has bugger all intention of doing it. They’ll need to drag her out somehow or the EU will continue to be the largest trading bloc on Earth and we’ll never get the deal we need.”

You’ve had the local elections. The EU elections are coming up next week. Get ready for the confirmatory vote before or after the GE. The only risk to all that voting now is if May suddenly starts repeatedly daily that we will have the opportunity to vote.

GROUND ZERO : Theresa May has surprised an exasperated nation today by explaining the only method she can think of for getting her to leave 10 Downing Street voluntarily.

”It’s the only pointer I can provide,” she told a deserted press conference this afternoon, “thirty or forty megatonnes ought to do it. But be sure to detonate the blast right on top of the old place.”

But critics have been quick to query the sincerity of the message, as the prime minister is known to spend her time permanently inside the bunker beneath her office.

”It’s a trap,” Sir Bottox-Foxshot-Hound, MP for Less-badgers, told LCD Views, “she’s trying to get us to blow ourselves up so she can continue to govern unopposed.”

But the skepticism in her own party wasn’t matched on the opposition benches.

A source close to the Labour leader commented favourably on the possibility of at least a small scale nuclear explosion as means of dragging May from Downing Street.

”I have a few antique Soviet weapons lying about the pad. I wouldn’t mind lending one for the job. It’s got to be worth a shot. We don’t seem to be getting there saying jobs first Brexit and triangulation of the electorate.”

Still, it’s unlikely to be tried until after the Conservatives are erased at the ballot box in the upcoming EU elections.

”She’d bloody survive it,” a member of the governing 1922 committee feared, “everyone else but here and Nigel Farage would be ashes and atoms, but she’d still be there working hard to fulfil his only policy objective. Which come to think of it, is exactly what we’re doing right now.”

Wasting time is, the government has been warned, out of the question. Naturally enough, in true Brexit fashion, the Conservative Party is ignoring this advice. Instead of “getting on with it”, they are seriously considering a leadership challenge.

“We have loads of time!” explained leadership contender Doc O’Thebay. “A week is a long time in politics, and we have six whole months to sort Brexit. Theresa May has done a really bad job of doing a deal. With my long experience of making sweeping statements and fiddling expenses, I’m sure I could sort it all out in a couple of hours!”

The confidence of many Brexiters is not surprising. Their job for the last three years has been to make unspecified demands, and complain when nobody has a bloody clue what they really want. They have done this job magnificently.

“This is not wasting time,” said O’Thebay, speaking as one might to a six year old with learning difficulties. “A leadership challenge will bring fresh excitement to the process. We need a new leader, one with the gumption to knock European heads together, remind them who won the war, and force them to give us a great deal and call us ‘sir’. It’s that simple.”

A leadership challenge could take up months of indecision, canvassing, debating, voting. The Tory Party rules on this are almost as complex as a risk assessment involving small children, vicious wild animals and a cliff edge.

Contenders are many and varied. They include a man who can’t remember the nationality of his wife, a man who has no concept of the basic geography of Great Britain, and hard man Steve “I could crush a grape!” Baker.

This is a last throw of the dice. Brexit has all but fizzled out. The government has even conceded the need to hold EU elections, even if it can’t be arsed to actually contest them.

So here we are. Sittin’ on the dock of the bay, wasting time.

SAYING ONE THING AND DOING ANOTHER FILE: HMG has suddenly decided to take the axe to the magic money tree and chop off a limb for a good cause. We are curious as to why?

“Isn’t it obvious?” our political analyst asked during the imaginary editorial meeting this morning.

Yes. It seems to be. But spell it out.

“Well, they must be preparing for a GE,” the analyst explained, “they’ve sat back disinterested for a couple of years while tenants slept terrified through every night due to having potentially lethal material on the very walls outside of their bedrooms. But now? Now suddenly the public purse is to open and spill out £200m to pay for it.”

Well the property owners and leaseholders are just squabbling over the cost and not getting anything done, this is just responsible government.

“Don’t play devil’s advocate with me,” the analyst spat, “if they gave a flying fcuk they would have done that ages ago. Look at the timing.”

It’s just circumstantial.

“Exactly. The circumstances are that a GE is going to be called any day now and so they want to position themselves right on Grenfell after years of inaction. Caring Conservatives. Cynical buggers.”

It’s a very good issue to resolve.

“And it should have been ages ago. But you go on, write a headline playing into the inevitable spin.”

But a GE isn’t very likely. May said she wouldn’t be calling one and will stand down once Brexit is delivered.

Why are you laughing? Stop laughing. This is a serious meeting to decide the day’s articles.

“Now I’ve got tears in my eyes. May said…omg…has she ever stood by anything she’s ever said?”

FINGERS CRISS CROSSED : A woman who is secretly planning to vote for the Liberal Democrats or the Green Party in the upcoming EU elections has spoken to LCD Views, in the strictest confidence.

We have decided not to respect her confidence and are printing her words (as we have interpreted them at any rate) and a photo of an actor with her likeness.

”I’m so glad I can trust you,” she said, “I need to vent a little bit, but due to my position in the public eye I can’t talk openly. Actually, due to my inherent nature I can’t either. Was it nature or nurture or both?”

We can only wonder. The Go Home Vans suggest nurture, but we don’t know enough about your early life and the conditions to contextualise that.

”Maybe some people are just born without empathy?”

That’s a viable hypothesis.

So who are our planning to vote for in the EU elections? The Conservatives?

”You must be insane. Any vote for the Tories is a vote for Nigel Farage.”

Labour then?

”Ditto the above. Unless their position on FOM shifts. Why the hell the Labour Party is aligned with Farage and Tommy Robinson on that is anyone’s guess.”

Then who? Change U.K.?

”Are they still called that? I really can’t keep up. No, it’s either the Liberal Democrats or the Greens, as I’m voting in England.”

That will surprise some. Why?

”Because I cant see any other way to end the chaos of my government. And I really bloody want to shaft Bojo and the ERG. This seems the best way.”

If their vote share is huge it’ll mean backing another referendum with a Remain option.

”Regrettable, but then I get to stick it to Labour too, so let’s go all the way and stay.”

BOX TICKING EXERCISE : Leaky old Downing Street is in lockdown AGAIN after yet another leak revealed the draft ballot card for the inevitable 2nd EU referendum.

“This is a disaster bigger than Chris Grayling,” a Downing Street source exaggerated wildly, “we have to get the jump on Corbyn’s gang in backing another referendum. If they see this they might get the jump on us. Please don’t publish this story.”

The suspicion that May and her cabinet will back another referendum in the hope of settling Brexit has been growing within anyone really paying attention to how batshit insane and unsolvable Brexit is for some time.

”We’ll get there. It’s our only way out. It’s our only way to slam Labour, even though they don’t really need the help having decided to poison themselves with Brexit too,” the source fretted, “we need this confirmatory vote also, so we can properly blame the people for Brexit when they all start starving IF they’re nuts enough to fall twice for the same con.”

It’s not clear how Labour will react to the leak of the draft card, presumably badly, as they’ve agreed in private talks that if there is another vote the ballot card will offer a choice between “May’s Great Deal” and “Jobs First Brexit”.

”The timing is so important,” the source added, “May’s only really objective is to cling to power as long as possible while Philip keeps being a hedge fund manager. When she promises the next referendum it means she stays in power for months and months and months. That’ll just about crush Boris Johnson and the ERG.”

It must be stressed we are only printing what was leaked, we can’t validate this card as genuine. We actually expected both options on it to say ‘Brexit means Brexit’, so having a Remain option is a bit of a shock.

At any rate we know which box we’ll tick when the Downing Street tooth pulling stops and we get back into the ballot box.