Category: Democracy

Boris Johnson is said to be “reeling” this morning and “flabbergasted” after failing to win the coveted role of MacBeth in a Westminster local theatre production, in spite of a strong audition.

“It’s a bit baffling why the director would choose anyone other than Boris,” Boris Johnson’s acting coach, P T Barnum, told LCD Views’ light entertainment correspondent, “when you look at his career path post 2015, he seems to be completely method in preparation for the role of MacBeth in his professional and personal life.”

Mr Barnum further believes that the manner of Boris’ audition should have made him a shoo in.

“He beat up and butchered most of the others auditioning,” Barnum says, “they were just people from the local community, so it was as easy. He acts all Falstaff in public, but behind the scenes he’s a regular Titus.”

So what went wrong?

“Boris let Gove him help prepare, that was his first misstep. As on the morning of the audition Iago, I mean Gove, announced he was also auditioning.

This hurt Boris a lot. He had trouble focusing. He had to go and burn some fifties in front of some rough sleepers just to get his equilibrium back.”

So Gove got the part?

“No. The director believes neither man would be able to portray the necessary levels of regret required in MacBeth once the carnage really gets going, when the play is staged in the summer.

There’s also serious doubt whether or not Boris could stay faithful to Lady MacBeth long enough for anyone to believe they were in a genuine marriage, even in a staged play. You can’t really have Boris improvising new lines and secret liaisons while the play is actually being staged.”

How did Boris take the news?

“Not well, he sent the director, who is eighty five year and staging the play for charity, the following lines from Titus Andronicus,

I will grind your bones to dust
And with your blood and it I’ll make a paste,
And of the paste a coffin I will rear
And make two pasties of your shameful heads,
And bid that strumpet, your unhallow’d dam,
Like to the earth swallow her own increase.”

How did the director take that?

“He sent back a very brief note with a line from MacBeth,

Dear Mr Johnson,

Confusion now hath made his masterpiece…

Now kindly bugger off because all the world really is a stage and you are our face upon it…”

The government has moved swiftly to profit from the chorus of celebration over their decision to take hot school lunches away from a vast number of children whose parents are too lazy to feed them.

“We will be replacing the hot meals with a copy of the bible,” a spokesman for the vicar’s daughter told LCD Views, “We’ve outlined all of the Old Testament in bold, so the children will get the message. And if they don’t we will beat them about the head with the books until they do. Metaphorically of course. We won’t be bringing back corporal or capital punishment until after Brexit.”

It’s hoped with this open handed act the hungry children will fill themselves up with thoughts and prayers.

“Only by following the example of their elected representatives in such matters as want and fasting can underprivileged children in England hope to better themselves,” the spokesman said, “if they don’t study hard and better themselves they’ll end up as the sort of lost causes their parents clearly are, if you are paying attention to our caring conservative agenda.”

We wanted to find out how the children themselves will take the swapping of a  hot meal, perhaps the only one they would have gotten that day, with a big book full of old fashioned words, and lessons Theresa May and Arlene Foster ignore when it suits them for base political reasons.

“What are the recipes like?” Artful Dodger, 10, London, asked.

It’s not a cookbook, we informed him, it’s a book that will teach you how to avoid the pitfalls of decadence and sin that your parents have fallen prey to.

“Oh, but how will I study properly if I am too hungry to concentrate properly?”

We will pass that question along to the two good christians who have stitched up this penny pinching deal to satisfy their party first politics and questionable sense of duty to the less fortunate.

A giant vault has been discovered underneath Westminster Palace which contains hundreds of spines believed to have been removed from the United Kingdom’s members of Parliament.

”Ever since Guy Fawkes attempted his little fireworks display we’ve been under orders to check all the accessible spaces under the palace several times a day,” a security insider told LCD Views.

It seems that during one such sweep yesterday a secret vault was discovered by accident that led to the fortitous discovery.

”I keep expecting to find that Victorian waxwork Rees-mogg down here with Farage and barrels of gunpowder,” the insider said, “but it was whilst chasing a rat that looked like Arron Banks chasing a much bigger rat that looked like a Russian man holding a bag containing thirty pieces of silver, that was when I found the vault.”

The security officer said he slipped rounding a corner and his torch flew from his hands.

”It landed pointing the light at a little handle at floor level I’ve never seen before.”

Unlike the grimy surrounds the handle was shiny and had clearly seen recent and frequent use.

”There was a bit of gore on it. Blood and skin and the like. All the skin was very yellow.”

Undeterred the officer turned the handle.

”There was a sound like a giant millstone grinding away and then the floor beneath me slid back and I toppled in to this vault.”

He went on to say he didn’t fall far.

”For a heartbeat I believed I was a goner. But I only fell a few feet before I found myself on top of a giant subterranean mountain of spines. Only spines. You know, backbones.”

The officer was able to climb out and run for help.

”I did attempt to take one with me, but it just turned to dust at the slightest pressure.”

Whether or not it will be able to match the spines to their former owners is anyone’s guess.

”I suspect the upcoming Commons votes will see dozens of MPs scrambling down here to find their backbone,” he added, “as they head for the division lobbies in the fearful knowledge that willingly pursuing an agenda that is going to break the United Kingdom, or not doing that, is a choice that reveals who has a spine and who has not.”

A political scientist has discovered an alternative dimension where even Ed Milliband has already kicked the Tories out of office.

”I was searching for a new way to slice bread,” Professor Harry Ope told LCD Views, “I got stoned out of my box and put my toaster into the microwave with a cup of tequila, an unsliced loaf of bread and a rubix cube. Then I hit defrost and waited.”

Professor Ope said at first there was nothing unusual.

“Just the standard blue arcs of electricity flashing inside the microwave. It seemed to go on for hours, but that was just the pot stretching time. In reality it took seconds.

Once the microwave filled with smoke I stopped the experiment and opened the door. There was no danger. I was wearing one oven glove.”

The professor explained that he expected to find a charred and molten mess, which has been the result each time he has run the experiment, and he would use the pattern of charring on the bread to determine if a different type of dough was required before trying again.

“What I saw was astounding. Inside the microwave a portal to an alternative dimension had opened. It was flickering like an old cinema screen. The view was black and white, but it was clear.”

The Professor said there was also, “a time stamp on the view which showed the date as the 24th December 2017.”

It seems in this dimension the Jeremy Corbyn resigned after failing to win the June general election. To everyone’s surprise Ed Milliband had been returned as Labour Party leader, after Momentum members put him on the leadership ballot as a joke, but he went all the way again.

“He immediately went anti-Brexit, as demanded if respecting the overwhelming views of the Labour Party membership.

This caused so much disarray in the governing Conservative DUP demand and supply bung bought deal, because May couldn’t rely on Ed Miliband whipping his MPs to vote through Tory Brexit, that Theresa May was deposed in a vote of no confidence, after the DUP removed their support and the Tories were unable to govern.”

So is Brexit still happening in this alternative dimension?

“Don’t be silly. It’s in the trash can of history along with the racism that was in its blood.”

So no negative impacts?

“Nigel Farage is now Director General of the BBC, but that’s already happened in our dimension, so no, it’s otherwise a better place to be.

A modern Britain where people are sweeping up the mess and actually funding public services again.

And the most surprising thing is that EU rules don’t stop you carrying forward socialist projects and the nasal warrior has already started bringing the railways back into public ownership.”

 

Theresa May is to build on her party’s general election success last year by calling a snap GE, to lose more MPs so she can finally quit as prime minister.

”She’s fed up with waiting about looking a complete and utter plank,” Damien Green MP told LCD Views over breakfast at the Ritz.

”She fully expected to have been able to hand Brexit to Johnson and/or Gove by now.

She’s read out every inane and self-contradicting statement they ask of her. But still she’s the one holding the Brexit can. It wasn’t the deal.

Rees-mogg could be leader if he wants. Theresa isn’t bothered, if our party is as insane as everyone suspects and goes for it.

But no one will actually put the knife in. People just keep waving daggers about and shouting. Bunch of pussies. She’s fed up.”

It appears the prime minister is further encouraged to call a snap GE by the endless run of lost council seats in by-elections.

”We just keep getting panned. The Libdems are getting 40-50% swings in a lot of by-elections.

This explains the extraordinary denigration reserved by Momentum activists for anyone they suspect of not backing Saint Jezza online. Don’t question Jezza and Brexit, unless you’ve already turned off your twitter notifications.”

But how many seats would May need to lose to get out of office?

”Her own would be the jackpot!” Damien hooted, “failing that? Twenty to thirty would be brilliant. But ending in a dead heat with Labour is the real risk.”

Why’s that?

”Those trots ruining Labour don’t want government. They’re enjoying the perks of being the official opposition for eternity.

You can’t tell me they couldn’t have pushed the whole rotten Tory cabal out of office by now by merely half heartedly opposing Brexit. Not voting through article 50 before any preparation was done would have nailed it. But they seized the chance of the endless struggle.”

What are you really saying?

“Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t want to be prime minister. He’s an old man. He wants to be a figurehead and sail about kissing hands.”

So the risk is what exactly?

”Labour will refuse to govern as a coalition. And we’ll be stuck holding the wrong end of the stick until we burst into flames and burn the country to the ground.”

Call it then!

”We will. Just as soon as we’ve worked out the catchphrase and worked up a new policy as sufficiently barmy as the dementia tax. That was a stroke of genius. It almost nailed the last defeat to the floor for us.”

LCD Views can barely contain itself with the latest release of Labour’s detailed Brexit plan now including a promise that Jeremy Corbyn himself will wash the feet of people who lose their jobs if Labour’s ‘jobs go first Brexit’ is adopted as “the” Brexit.

“It’s insane,” A Intern said, while washing the coffee mugs in the LCD kitchenette, “to think if you sack me after Brexit our lord and saviour Jeremy Corbyn himself will come around to my parents’ house and wash my feet? Intense flavour man.”

The additional offer is being made to double down on the success of Labour’s promise to remove the United Kingdom from the 21st century as surely as their parliamentary co-conspirators, the Conservatives are promising to.

“Do I have to get in line behind the steel workers? The aerospace employees? The service sector types? Or will I get preferential treatment because I refuse to question Labour’s constant hedging on the biggest public policy issue for generations because they don’t want to upset voters who can’t be bothered to educate themselves about the impact of Brexit?

And because we all know JC is a miracle worker and will easily solve all of society’s ills with or without money in the public purse. To actually question Corbyn’s actions on Brexit is heresy. It makes your personally responsible for the death of homeless people right now.

You only have to talk to a Momentum activist on Twitter to be told that. Often for three or four days in a row after a one or two exchange conversation. They are winning hearts and minds.”

We think you have to get in line, regardless of how closely you adhere to dogma. Support for Brexit is a matter of principles for the Labour leadership.

“Can they conduct a lottery? Will it happen on a Saturday before I do my weekly sock change?”

You’ll have to wait for further details.

“It’s kept me behind the boy, who cares about the how and why?

The most important thing is that the government and official opposition are working together to remove the UK from the largest trading bloc on earth at a time of rising protectionism.

And most importantly, when that clown currently US commander in chief is looking to start trade wars, to distract from all that Russian mafia money laundering and collusion stuff which will lead to his impeachment or resignation.”

Yes, the timing of Brexit could not be more perfect.

The BBC however have been quick to jump on Corbyn’s offer.

“What kind of soap will he be using? Will it be allotment compliant? How can Labour promise to wash so many feet when the country’s water supplies are so strained from decades of underinvestment to enrich shareholders in utilities?

Now, let’s talk to Iain Duncan Smith and let him talk uninterrupted for ten minutes.”

Quite.

Jeremy Corbyn himself could not be reached for comment as he was busy coordinating the next round of Brexit debates in parliament with his old friends in the Tory party, from the days when they were all parliamentary outsiders together.

Great news for lovers of democratic debate, involving the interchange of seasoned rabble rousing, with the announcement that the EU parliament is to sit in the BBC Question Time studio from now on, to ensure Nigel Farage attends weekly.

“It was initially a little confusing to me,” said B Iffer, a regular plant for the Conservatives in the audience, “Nigel is on the programme week in and week out anyway, so I don’t fink the tyrannical and unelected EU parliament sitting in the studio means he’ll turn up more?”

B Iffer went on to assert it was just another sign of the vanity of the EU and how they waste British taxpayers’ money that should be spent on building a seawall to keep economic migrants at home.

Next something about “controlling our boarders, except the Irish one”, which needs to be exactly like schengen to keep the DUP happy and May in power. Power is a word used in this context for convenience and not accuracy, as regards Theresa May, whose power is held by Foster.

We explained to B Iffer that he’d gotten hold of the wrong end of the stick.

“What stick?”

We explained the metaphor.

That didn’t work.

So we found a stick, jammed one end into some dog poo and gave B Iffer that end to hold. It took a few seconds for his lip to curl up in disgust, but he got there.

“But what’s this got to do with Nigel?”

The EU parliament is not moving to the BBC Question Time studio to make sure Nigel turns up to Question Time, they’re moving to ensure Nigel turns up to the EU parliament, which is both a place he was elected to and a job he doesn’t do.

“See, this is why we need to leave the EU!” B Iffer exploded, “bullies!

They pay Nigel a bucket of money, except for the current reduction to do with some trumped up accountancy issues, for him to spout racist crap and assist in driving the UK into isolation and fragmentation.

Possibly a return of paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland, if there’s any sort of hard border, all so right wing media barons, ill intentioned foreign powers and born to rule toffs, who have no real idea for the most what they’re doing, they’re just useful idiots, and the EU think he has time to turn up and do the job he’s going to get a fat pension for?

But Nigel’s job is to work for his constituents as an MEP in a democratically elected chamber of representatives. Also to do something about fish, but he doesn’t really give a toss about fish.

This is disgraceful. Not on my watch!”

We left B Iffer holding the stick. He still had the wrong end in his hand.

“Paying people to tweet for the Conservative party is expected to be followed by paying people to vote for them soon,” LCD’s exhausted politics analyst revealed today, after a lunch meeting with head of Conservative digital strategies, Ben Bradley MP.

“It’s just a natural progression of allowing lobbyists and big business folk to pay to spend time with the prime minister,” our analyst continues, “and paying people to retweet for them? If you don’t have enough activists to obsesses about you on Twitter, you’re pretty stuffed, if the Russian porn girl spam bots aren’t prepared to put their tattooed shoulders to the wheel.”

The changes are welcome for the ageing membership of the Tory party, which is physically dying away at a rate that is alarming the party, and aren’t best known for spending 24/7 on Twitter or Facebook.

“It’s actually now an own goal to be slowly roasting the NHS to a hardened bean to be ground up and drunk like an espresso by private US healthcare firms,” Ben told our man, “if only we’d thought about it, we would have invested more into cryogenics.”

Once the retweeting army is settled in to their working hours of 9am to 5pm each day, the party is expected to move to the next stage of buying votes.

“The usual way is to offer some nonsense by the chancellor just before a ballot, like free kittens for people who only have aggressive dogs, but we’re going to go one step better and bring back the tradition of the ‘rotten borough’ by setting up new digital constituencies that only registered Conservative Party members and paid voters are able to cast a ballot in.”

LCD Views approves of the bold steps the Conservative Party is taking to revitalise the flagging institutions of democracy in the United Kingdom.

“This really is an exciting change that will build on years of doing exactly what Rupert Murdoch has told us to.”

Quite.

Exciting news for lovers of creating volcanoes today with the announcement that scientists are to drill into the earth’s mantle in the hope of finding a new source of integrity for British politics.

The work is scheduled to begin within the week in the centre of Westminster Green. We spoke to the head driller to learn more.

“With Big Ben being silenced currently it’s the perfect time to drill miles beneath the skin of the Earth and right into its molten heart,” D Riller, lead engineer, stated,

“we expect it will take about a week to get down as we’ll be using a replica of Michael Gove’s conscience as a drill head, and there’s absolutely nothing that can break or scratch that, it’s possibly the hardest substance known to mankind. Which is a bit weird, as its mostly empty atoms.”

It’s believed the potential benefits are many.

“We may find Lord Lucan. It’s highly possible that’s where he’s been hiding. Also the Brexit impact assessments in full. Theresa May’s ability to decide on a course of action that is feasible and stick to it. A source of cheap heat to replace the more dangerous hot air currently used to warm the houses of parliament.”

But what about the big prize?

“And then, there’s the chance we may just find an untapped well of integrity that we can use in British politics, which is largely lacking anything resembling it at the moment.”

But won’t there be resistance to returning integrity to politics in the UK, if it is found miles beneath the surface of the Earth?

“That’s why we’re going to attempt to create a small, just a small, manmade volcano at the same time. No chance the majority of serving politicians will stick about if there’s the slightest chance of a personal setback. We’ll be able to take that integrity and plug it into the mainstream.”

And what will it look like?

“About a hundred Ken Clarkes. A smattering of Anna Soubry’s and a couple of hundred Femi Oluwoles. Some Peter Kyles, and well, just a bunch of MPs prepared to vote against their parties on Brexit.”

Why the Femi’s?

“Because he’s a sign of the changing guard in British politics. The old hacks are mostly running around on pre-digital media patterns. The activists in their 20’s are going to tear that lot down over the next couple of years or two. With any luck.”

No Jeremy Corbyn’s?

“You’ve got to be having a laugh. He’s a Brexiter.”

Good luck with the work. It’s fair to say the country needs you to succeed in tapping a giant well of integrity, however deep you have to drill.

Boris Johnson is under renewed scrutiny today after allowing the Seventh Earl of Sidcup, Lord Roderick Spode’s, think tank the Black Shorts use of an FCO room for free to launch their latest bit of neocon, fascist nonsense.

“It’s not like Boris Johnson had a choice,” LCD’s Walks like a duck analyst commentated, “He has done zero, zilch, next to nothing to get Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe out of that Iranian hell hole prison because allegedly Philip Hammond won’t agree to pay up for her freedom and Boris, to be fair, allegedly doesn’t really give a shit. This is all just an irritation on his path to personal glory.”

So it seems Mr Johnson was forced to make another controversial move to create a distraction for the media?

“Yes, the Tories only have ‘dead cats’ left in their policy box. They don’t have truth to go on. Can you think of one area of public policy they haven’t screwed up? Brexit is a big lie that is eating them alive.

Really, how they expect to survive as a party with their membership physically dying, and their every move destroying the aspirations of young voters, is anyone’s guess. So they have to keep making distractions up while they ask anyone they can think of what’s the magical solution for all their problems.

Because it certainly isn’t getting back to truth! Just look at the nonsense their allied hard right, offshore for tax purposes, media baron pals are up to!”

So allowing Roderick Spode to launch his new policy on potatoes at the Foreign Office is just more of the same?

“Yes. Sky started focusing on the plight of Nazanin again so Boris Johnson needed to make a play or he maybe forced into a discussion about how they are unwilling to cough up on the historical debt to free her.”

It’s a good thing Spode’s Black Shorts were to hand!

“Indeed. The way things are going we’ll all be having our knees measured before we can get hold of one of those fantastic, world enlarging blue passports after Brexit.”

But couldn’t Boris Johnson have charged the Black Shorts for the use of them room and put that money in a pot, start saving towards Nazanin’s release?

“You missed the bit about him allegedly not really giving a shit, didn’t you.”