Category: Democracy

The Times is the latest pillar of the establishment to fall. It joins most of the other major titles, and the BBC, in the Hall Of Shame.

The Times must think we are idiots. It has published a piece by Leave.EU overspender Arron Banks which calls for Theresa May’s head and describes her as a traitor. This sort of propaganda is out of place in a respected newspaper. The previously reliable organ has joined the race to the bottom of the barrel.

The determinedly not-mainstream LCD Views spoke to media analyst Newt Rallity about balanced reporting.

“Virtually all the mainstream titles think their readers are fools,” commented Rallity. “The Mail and the Express gave up any pretence of reporting real news years ago, but still present propaganda as fact. The red-tops are even further down that particular road.”

As for the so-called quality press…

“The Telegraph recently threw in the towel and became a Brexit champion,” Rallity claimed. “Now the Times is printing emotive slander and implicitly supporting a right-wing coup. They think they can get away with it because it’s what their readers want to hear. Spoon-feeding them with drivel so they don’t have to think for themselves.”

Isn’t there a watchdog which is there to maintain standards of reportage?

“Yeah, IPSO,” said Rallity. “I call it IPSO facto, because it thinks that if something is in black and white, it must be true.”

Not much use as a watchdog if it doesn’t have any teeth.

“No, it’s like the dog in the village pub,” agreed Rallity. “It growls a bit, until you chuck it a few peanuts and say ‘who’s a good boy then’. Upon which it goes to sleep and lets you do what you like.”

So an allegedly Russian-financed insurance salesman is using the a once respectable member of the British press to undermine the PM, and democracy with it? They must think we are all idiots.

Jeremy Corbyn is toast. Quite literally. An image of the former Messiah’s face has manifested itself on a slice of white toast.

Mrs Trudy Vinity from The North was settling herself down to a nice cup of tea and some hot buttered toast, when she noticed strange markings on it, and realised it was the face of Jeremy Corbyn. “I was about to slap a load of raspberry jam on my toast,” she remarked.

“The seedless stuff, I can’t stand pips. Anyway, it was then I saw the odd marks on the toast. I said to myself, Trudy, I said, the toaster’s on the blink again after Dominic Raab’s face appeared the other day. Well, we all know Raab is a bit of a twonk, but Corbyn? I called the Evening Express straight the way!”

Stranger still, sightings have been reported all over the British Isles. Mrs Marge O’Reen from Ireland saw Corbyn’s face in her colcannon, and Mrs Chelsea Bunne from London noticed Jeremy’s boat race staring back at her out of a portion of smashed avocado.

Nor is the phenomenon confined to food. Welsh farmer Wynn ap Ryze realised that his sheep had formed the face of Jeremy Corbyn on the hillside.

What does it all mean? LCD Views turned to paranormal expert May King-Ittup. “It’s clearly the end of an era,” she said. “It is obviously a sign that the spirit of Jeremy Corbyn is making his final farewells before he finally suffocates in the slough of his own ineptitude.”

“Remember last summer?” she asked. “At Glastonbury? When Corbyn appeared in person to wow the crowds? He was unstoppable then, but that day he failed to grasp the simple fact that Glastonbury was his big chance. After flunking that opportunity, he has faded into being an irrelevant Tory enabler. He’s toast, and he knows it.”

Will we witness the Second Coming of JC? Or will he lead us all to crucifixion and a chorus of ‘Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life’?

Confusion! Furore! Disarray at Con (job) HQ today with the revelation that Brandon Lewis has accidentally refused membership to their head of Conservative Party policy.

”I am very sorry, I just forgot who he was,” Lewis fumbled before news cameras, “but I’m sure if Mr Banks can organise to have millions of pounds transferred into an Isle of Mann bank account and refuse to say where it came from, and then donates it all to Tory grass roots campaign groups, we can look again at his application.”

But looking again at the application may prove difficult with suspicions that Mr Banks may have to flee the U.K. around about the time Donald Trump’s criminal empire completely crumbles across the pond.

Labour, under fire themselves for all the easily misinterpreted speeches of their leadership were quick to seize on the divisions and fail to capitalise.

”Mr Banks is one of the father’s of Brexit. Brexit is the hill this government has chosen to die on. We have chosen to die on that hill with them by supporting Ms May at crucial stages. From the vote to trigger article 50, when any sane individual knew that lengthy analysis and preparation was required, given that the timing of the trigger was the only card we held as a country, to right now by refusing to back a democratic vote on whatever deal is achieved,

”Not allowing Mr Banks membership of the Conservative Party, while happy to take his policies, is clear exploitation of a British worker. We won’t stand for it. Mr Banks should be given membership of the party immediately.”

Arron Banks himself seemed less bothered.

”My ranks of the walking dead are joining the Tories en masse. Steve Bannon is guiding Boris and myself on the exact level of racism you need to fuel to takeover an inherently racist party like the “hostile environment” Tories, it will be fine,

”As long as both major parties on the British political landscape are happy to drive forward Brexit, regardless of how clearly it is a hard right and disaster capitalist project promising misery to the many and mass profit to the few, I am fine without a blue rosette on my lapel.”

An everyday tale of Westminster folk.

“’Ere, Boris, you stay out of trouble, d’yer ‘ear me!” shouted Theresa at her wayward son. “And stop draggin’ little Michael into yer dodgy business!”

“I’m goin’ to make you proud of me, mum!” promised Boris, fingers crossed behind his back. He shambled out of the house, with little Michael in his wake. “’Ere, Mikey, let’s see wot Nigel is floggin’ dahn the market today.”

“Sovereignty! Sovereignty! Get yer sovereignty ‘ere!” called wide-boy Nigel, handing out purple-and-yellow flags. “Blue passports, almost as good as the red ones but cheaper! Oi, Mustapha, get yer filthy mockers off my sovereignty! Be off wiv yer!”

“Morning, Nige,” said Boris. “’Ow do yer fancy goin’ into partnership? I’ve been floggin’ dodgy goods for years. It’s the best game in the world, innit!” Michael nodded eagerly.

“Yeah, we could make a killin’!” agreed Nigel. “Let’s frash aht the details over a pint in the King Dick.” Arron, the landlord of the imposing Victorian pub, The King Richard, was just opening up.

“’Ey, Jeremy, mind the stall fer us fer a bit will yer? Ta,” shouted Boris to his loveable loser of a cousin. “Free pints of Bilge please, Arron.”

“Nuffin’ dodgy in this joint today, boys,” warned Arron, pouring the beer. “Not unless yer give me a cut!”

“Yer on!” said Boris. “’Ere, Arron, wot King is this pub named after?”

“The Lion’eart, innit,” replied Arron. “’E went off crusadin’, duffin’ up lots of forriners in the name of Saint George, bless ‘im. Nah, wot’s the plan?”

“I got all this sovereignty, right, and blue passports and stuff dahn the lock-up,” confided Nigel. “I’m sellin’ Ingerland by the paahnd!”

The door burst open. In strode Theresa, hair awry and eyes blazing. “Oi, Boris, wot did I tell yer?” she yelled. “Get back in the ‘ouse right now! Michael, I’m ashamed of yer, ‘angin’ round wiv this bunch of crooks. ‘Ome! Now!”

“Nah, not comin’,” said Boris. “’Ere, missus, ‘ave a flag and some free sovereignty!” added Nigel. “And tell that useless toerag Jeremy to close up the stall for us, ta!”

Theresa stumbled out again, wondering what she had done wrong, raising a couple of villains.

Drums. Theme tune. More of the same every flippin’ night until you believe it’s for real.

The makers of ‘Life of Jeremy’, the long anticipated sequel to Monty Python’s smash hit, ‘Life of Brian’ have denied it’s just the “Life of Brian” digitally altered to put Jeremy Corbyn’s face on top of Graham Chapman’s in every scene of the original.

“It’s an entirely original work,” Mr Red Squeak, who fronts one of the dozens of separate digital media outfits set up to promote the cult of JC, said while attempting to appear independent.

”It’s a bold biopic of the life of a man who goes from a nobody, who can pretty much hang out with anyone because no one cares, to someone suddenly headed for a very public crucifixion.”

But film buffs are taking some convincing.

”The film’s tag line is a bit of a giveaway,” Mr Probably A-Tory Stooge said, “He is the messiah and he’s not a naughty boy? What are you supposed to make of that?”

Make of it what you will, we figured. You don’t need to follow him, You don’t need to follow anybody! You’ve got to think for yourselves! You’ve all got to vote in line with your principles as you live in a democracy. For a little bit longer anyway, until Brexit demolishes the whole show. And who is supporting Brexit?

”It’s transparently just an attempt at propaganda,” the film buff added, “it’s clearly Jeremy Corbyn. You’ve got a moderately talented man who has has initiated no successful legislation in thirty five years in parliament, suddenly caught up in events he doesn’t have the skills to navigate, by virtue of being promoted beyond his level of competency, which is Westminster in a nutshell at the moment,

”But millions are prepared to unquestioningly follow him. And to round on anyone who questions his decisions,

”That’s until he’s set up, nailed up to a metaphorical cross and publicly crucified. And the group he thinks are coming to save him are just a suicide squad publicly committing suicide under his feet. Which pretty much sums up the campaigning style of his strongest supporters.”

Still, the film is set for national release, timed to coincide with the late 2018 GE.

”They should at least change the tag line,” the film buff added.

What to?

”How about he’s not an anti-Semite, he’s a very naughty boy?”

Pictures have come to light recently of a man laying a wreath on the grave of a murderer. According to the press, this shows his compassionate side.

“The man wished to remain anonymous,” explained Miss Leigh Ding of the Daily Mail. “But we thought it right and proper to let the public know what sort of man they had to contend with.”

Surely, laying a wreath at a murderer’s grave means that the man is a terrorist sympathiser, and not fit to hold public office?

“But the murderer repented,” argued Ding. “Forgiveness is the highest virtue. This shows that the man has such a big heart, it makes me weep with pure joy.”

This happened four years ago, it’s hardly newsworthy.

“The public need to be reminded, daily, about this man’s character,” Ding scolded. “How else will they respond to the man in the right fashion?”

Let’s play devil’s advocate for a moment. Imagine that the man in the cemetery had been Jeremy Corbyn.

“He always has sinister motives,” responded Ding without thinking. “He would have been there to celebrate terrorism, and we would have shouted about it in a self-righteous manner. It’s in our editorial guidelines.”

What else do they say?

“They are Orwellian in their simplicity,” she said. “Right wing good, left wing bad. You do know that sinister means left, don’t you? And right means correct?”

Does this explain your rabid pro-Brexit reporting too?

“Naturally,” she replied. “Brexit is a far right policy. That means it must be very right indeed. Anything anti-Brexit must therefore be very wrong. It’s that simple!”

Even if the referendum was fraudulent? Even if Brexit is based on lies and fantasies? Even if the likes of Boris Johnson flout the rules and behave disgracefully?

“Of course. Brexit is right, and right means right. Hey, you sound a bit anti-Brexity now! Out, damned traitor! Enemy of the people! Saboteur!”

The compassionate man is taking Corbyn to court to answer charges of treason. The Daily Mail will act as judge, jury and executioner.

The annual prize for fiction is always given to an original work. Unusually, the Daily Mail has been nominated for a series of sensational front pages, which in their entirety comprise what one judge calls a ‘compelling narrative’.

The judge, well-known author and literary figure Paige Turner, explained her reasoning to LCD Views.

“We look for truly innovative creative work,” she said. “Traditionally we only award the prize to novels; but the world moves on, and literary fiction can be found everywhere, even on the front pages of once reputable newspapers.”

So please explain the ‘compelling narrative’.

“The Daily Mail has cleverly woven several threads together,” said Turner. “But the most recent twist in the never-ending story comes from the predominant racism strand. This focuses on a hapless loser called Jeremy, and his endearing attempts to lead a largely irrelevant band of brothers. The Mail calls them by a variety of names, but usually goes for the descriptive route. So they are lefties, traitors, anything derogatory. The strength in this strand of the story comes from the fact that it could easily be mistaken for a genuine political movement.”

And what does it have to do with racism?

“Well, Jeremy is constantly accused of racism,” Turner explains. “Whether he is actually racist, the tale never tells, but the implication hangs in the air like pipe smoke. In the latest instalment, Jeremy is discovered to have laid a wreath in a cemetery where terrorist victims also lie. This is part of his anti-Semitic back-story. It has a clear parallel with current events, where a real-life bumbling fool has made deliberate, or at least ill-advised, Islamophobic remarks.”

Turner also mentions a recurrent theme in the Mail’s work, a highly imaginative apocalyptic narrative about evil foreigners (“migrants” in the text) coming to destroy a fictional empire by suckling on Britannia’s teat.

We await the shortlisting with bated breath, reading glasses at the ready. Let us hope the Daily Mail can sustain its remarkable output of high quality fiction.

It comes as a shock when this reporter finds himself taking David Cameron’s side on anything, but that’s what happened this weekend.

Remarks made by the former Prime Minister David Cameron a few days ago, in which he referred to Michael Gove as “a lunatic” have had quite a wide range of consequences. Some have agreed with him on the principle that it was obvious, others have criticised him for not doing something about it, like removing him from office, when he had the chance, while some have said it takes one to know one.

But the strangest reaction has to be from the Crown Prosecution Service, who have charged him under the Official Secrets Act. Speaking at a press conference, Crown Prosecutor Will Sooham made a simple statement:

“We have charged Mr Cameron under the Official Secrets act for the statement he made on social media in which he stated categorically that Michael Gove was a lunatic.”

Responding to the challenge that the statement made was no secret, Mr Sooham replied:

“The Official Secrets Act does not exist to protect secrets but to protect officials, including in this case Mr Gove.”

As for the argument that most of the public would agree with the statement, Mr Sooham insisted that it was irrelevant.

The question of whose idea it was to press the charge, however, yielded an interesting result. Mr Sooham had a piece of paper, which he said was a transcript of an email on the subject. The sender’s name was highlighted as:

“Michael G-Groves, yes, that’s it, Groves, Michael Groves, definitely not Michael Gove, no way.”

Mr Sooham was able to confirm that “Mr Groves” wanted immediate and drastic action taken, but struggled to find anything concrete to use. Mr Sooham himself was the one who suggested the Official Secrets Act.

I could have been imagining it, but I thought I detected a twinkle in his eye when he admitted this.

The trial is fixed for November. We shall await the results, and indeed the appearance of “Michael Groves” with baited breath.

Downing Street made the announcement today. Unable to decide the status of EU citizens residing in the UK, or UK citizens residing in the EU, the government has instead simply decided to abolish citizenship completely.

“It’s too complicated an issue for my pretty little head,” tweeted media whore and neocon apologist Chloe Westley. “If you need to be an expert to understand it, then it can’t be very democratic.”

Westley is well known for her provocative tweets and frequent television appearances. Being young, unelected and Australian, she fits the profile of a loyal, democratic Brit perfectly.

Westley works for the Tax Payers’ Alliance, one of about a dozen so-called “think tanks” based coincidentally in the same property. Equally coincidental is the fact that these “think tanks” all promote a hard-right agenda. Chloe’s job is to draw the rage of the sensible, intelligent enemies of the state, who think that Brexit is a humungous pile of poo.

These “think tanks” have a disproportionate effect upon government policy. They are transparently funded by dark money to achieve shadowy ends. Ignore them and they squeam and squeam and squeam until the government is sick of them and adapts its policy accordingly. Chloe is like a squeamish Brexiter’s wet dream.

Subverting democracy is simple, which therefore makes it democratic.

Ditto abolishing British citizenship.

“I’m surprised this hasn’t occurred to us sooner, to be honest,” said Downing Street rent-a-gobshite Tom Foolery. “The idea is such a simple one. All men are equal! It’s democratic because it treats everyone, regardless of their origin or home, in the same way.”

The European Commission defines active citizenship as ‘Participation in civil society, community and/or political life’. “Which is why we have to get rid of it!” claims Foolery. “It comes from Europe. EU bad, UK good.”

And the 66m stateless ex-citizens? “Democracy was decided, once and for all, at the referendum,” repled Foolery. “Democracy is a return to feudal values and Merrie England. Democracy is a matter of simple obedience. Democracy is working all the hours God sends to put food on your overlord’s table. You had a vote, now shut up and accept the consequences!”

It’s that simple. Democracy is what we tell you it is.

A defiant Labour Party rocked the government today with its call for “a” No Deal Brexit instead of “the” No Deal Brexit on offer from Downing Street.

”What do we want?” Keir Starmer demanded, white flag in hand, as he rallied the troops outside the locked gates of Downing Street.

”An official opposition party worth the f*cking name!” random passers by responded.

”No. We want “a” No Deal Brexit,” Keir shouted back, waving his flag, “not “the” No Deal Brexit on offer by our colleagues in government.”

Keir was alone in his protest because Jeremy was asleep, Tom was polishing his Facebook account and the rest of the party was either wringing its hands over whether or not to split, or wondering how much more support they could garner by further infighting over anti-semitism, and which MPs they should boot out for various other, unrelated reasons to do with having actually been electable once.

The timing of Labour’s brawl with itself is important, as it provides a classy symmetry with the Tories unending brawl with themselves over how racist they can make the U.K. before the union fractures and leaves some thing called Little England looking like a cyst on the European rump.

When asked by one of the constables on guard at the Downing Street gates what the difference was between “a” No Deal Brexit and “the” No Deal Brexit, Mr Starmer froze for a few seconds.

”I just say what they tell me to say so Seamus doesn’t organise my local party to de-select me.”

But our exhausted political analyst was able to supply some details.

”Sod all. We all still starve slowly and no one likes us internationally anymore, which makes our life really much harder because we’ve thrown away all our leverage and shat on the goodwill of our allies.”

Wow! I know which No Deal I want!

”It’s actually a real puzzle why Labour have offered their version of No Deal now. Especially as the government are now trying to not publish the horrifying details of what no deal means. You’d think if Labour really wanted to take government they would go full in opposition to Brexit, to defend the most vulnerable, and watch the Tories crumble like a vampire exposed to sunlight.”

Why don’t they oppose the Tories at their weakest point?

“You’ll have to answer that for yourself.”

But now that there is a mountain of evidence of the negative to come from Brexit, lies, criminality and external corruption from overseas powers?

“You’ll have to answer that for yourself.”

Come on Labour, we want “the” official opposition party back. You can smash this toxic shitshow in Downing Street by smashing Brexit.

Why are the Labour leadership determined to float downstream with all the corrupt Tory MPs and assist in making Farage’s vision for the U.K. a reality?

Why are they doing it?

”You’ll have to answer that for yourself.”