Category: Governing the people

WE WILL FAIL THEM ON THE BEACHES AND IN THE CARE HOMES : THE BRITISH PRIME MINISTER, AL TO HIS FRIENDS, IS EXPECTED to reassure an anxious United Kingdom in a major speech, later today.

The speech has a capacity to be 100,000 words long, which is all that matters, not how long it actually turns out to be.

“It’s okay. We’ll crowdsource the extra words from the party faithful, and from Dom’s army of fake Twitter accounts,” a Downing Street source told LCD Views, “most of the speech will be a mishmash of barely understood and distinctly misapplied Churchillian references and Ancient Greek. Maybe some Latin if Boris is feeling wistful. And then claim victory. Our ICU’s were never overwhelmed. Just don’t ask why.”

The speech is further expected to hit the right notes, at the right time, and the impact of the speech will be a victory. It will be spoken about in WW2 metaphors and hopefully a few veterans will be co-opted to make anyone tempted to criticise the oratory feel so guilty they keep quiet. That will also be a victory.

“Everyone will understand that Boris has been victorious,” the source went on, “and he’ll wrap it up by revising an ancient and traditional British chant.”

Two World Wars And One World Cup?

“Precisely. That’ll see off any questions about how Germany managed to deal with Covid-19 so much better than Blighty, so far. We were following the science. That’s a victory too. Mostly for setting up scientists as fall guys for when we need to claim victory in the aftermath.”

Tune in and tune out.

The numbers game: The happy news was announced in the nick of time today. Priti Patel, masquerading as usual as the Don’t Leave Your Home Secretary, was privileged to let The People know.

“Let me me completely and absolutely clear about this,” she dissembled. “The Prime Minister’s fiancée has popped out a sprog. This girl, boy, dog cat, whatever it is, is the Prime Minister’s eleventy twelfth child!”

She paused to simper and smirk at her adoring public.

“This is a momentous occasion!” she continued. “This is the first time in many hundredty thousandty years that a baby has come to Downing Street.”

She checked her notes. An imperious ruffle of papers, a haughty look. A measured intake of breath.

“The last child born to a sitting Prime Minister was Leo Blair,” she announced. “In the year twoty dozen and nineteenty several!”

The new arrival gives Johnson the perfect excuse to skive off Prime Minister’s Questions.

“This will only be the umpteen thousandty time he’s missed it,” Patel observed. “It’s a good job that there isn’t a crisis going on, which would have needed Boris’ firm, decisive leadership! The rest of us will hold the fort until his five years paternity leave are up.”

But Patel had one revelation left up her sleeve. She put on her least empathetic expression, and eyeballed her virtual audience dramatically.

“This birth means that there are now two little bastards in Number Ten!”

Shock. Outrage. Even the hard-bitten sycophants at the Daily Mail and the Telegraph drew breath sharply. Patel had finally used a number correctly. One by one the screens went blank, as headlines sprung up instantly on websites far and wide.

“That went well!” said Patel, stepping down. She turned to her fully PPE’d assistant. “Pat me on the back!” she demanded.

As Boris Johnson transitions from ‘Prime Minister’ to ‘Absent Father’, we wish Johnson junior well, and hope he does well for himself, despite his disadvantaged start.

HUMANUM CLYPEUS : HOW COULD YOU BE SO HEARTLESS? Tory commentators, sock puppets, bots, useful idiots and weird, feverish natural supporters have a new shield to guard them as the UK bumbles along into mass mortality from CV-19.

“You can no longer mention herd immunity, because baby,” one well placed strategist told LCD Views, “mind you, when we were planning this baby last year we thought it’d be a distraction from No Deal Brexit. But you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Or a baby. Or do you? Do people look newborns in the mouth? I guess they do. But my point still stands.”

Of course the newborn is blameless of the sins of the father, but the father himself is a sudden beneficiary of the instinctive need to shield and provide sympathy for parents with new babies.

“It’s quite the lucky break,” the source went on, “now everyone, all across British political life, can forget instantly that Boris Johnson is infamous for not admitting how many children he’s fathered. Has fought against being named as father in court. Has numerous children with different mothers and is not exactly a poster child for fathering. But that’s all swept away. Want to know how to get public support when leaving the wife of three of your children, while she’s undergoing cancer treatment, for a much younger woman, before becoming engaged to your mistress, after moving her into Downing Street, while pursuing divorce against the current wife? Have a baby. It’s a no brainer.”

But such cynicism helps no one. Not least the workers in the NHS arguably dying because of Johnson’s avoidance of detail, trust in cranks and all round laziness and misadministration.

“But baby, you heartless bastard,” the source concluded, “how dare you attack the baby?”

I didn’t. I actually want to know why the government downgraded the seriousness of CV-19 in March and don’t think a baby excuses the father from accountability.

“Churchill famously took months off during Dunkirk when his mistress had a baby,” the source slapped back, “now zip it. Or you’re going to be accused of singlehandedly wrecking the baby’s chances in life.”

I’M JUST HERE FOR THE FOOD : DOWNING STREET has issued urgent clarification today after ongoing questions from traitors over the prime minister’s work ethic.

“He’s fulfilling the job criteria to a T,” a source inside Downing Street told LCD Views, “he’s not required to do any work and he’s not. If you have a problem with that you need to read the revised job spec for PM.”

It appears the category the job nestled in was revised in late March, at the same time as the downgrading of seriousness of CV-19.

“Look, let’s stop pretending, everyone knows Boris is just in it for the shits and giggles, perks and applause. It didn’t seem sensible to keep putting so much strain on the man. Ghastly bit of fate that soon after saying ‘take it on the chin’ he took it on the chin. We need to avoid his mouth and actual events conspiring so neatly together. So we made the appropriate changes to what the role of prime minister demands, at the appropriate times.”

And patriots can be reassured that none of the perks and benefits of the job have changed, the prime minister will still be on full salary with benefits, regardless of the hours he works. Whether or not he notices.

“It’s the ultimate zero hours gig at the moment,” the source continued, “which just shows how clever Johnson is and why he’s the right man to lead the country through the crisis his administration arguably made much, much worse. Do you get to live like a king? No. So shut up peasant.”

Great news! Our great leader has been declared fit for work by the Universal Credit people. He will be working day and night to distract attention away from where it should be.

“Ah, yes, the jolly old reins of power, raring to go, wiff waff, I say,” he is expected to say at the early morning press conference, which will be just in time for elevenses. “Well I’m back, yes, protect the NHS, stay home, stay safe, strain every sinew, err, something something, wibble, wibble, in vino paintbox, did you miss me?”

The nation will breathe a sigh of relief at the return of Johnson. If only because it means that the country is no longer in the hands of Dominic Raab-it-in-the-Headlights.

So what has been going on behind the scenes? The transcript from a private briefing between Johnson and the newly installed Professor of Medicine at the University of Tufton Street, “Classic” Dom Cummings, has been obtained by LCD Views’ Phone Tapping correspondent. This is what it says:

CDC: Ok, Spaffer, just get out there, be charming, and bugger off again sharpish. Claim your doctors have told you to take 60 minutes’ rest every hour, or something.

BJ: What shall I say, Classic? There’s 20k dead even using the adjusted figures, the members are getting restive, and Donald has forgotten to take his meds again.

CDC: Claim ignorance. They think you are a lazy, ignorant bastard anyway, so nobody will challenge you. The old tart Kuenssberg will be told to stick her tongue up your backside as per. You don’t have to worry about anything.

BJ: What about the science we are supposed to be following? What is the latest from SAGE?

CDC: You know as well as I do that science costs money we won’t get back. You mustn’t say Herd Immunity any more, even the ERG find it offensive now. I have worked hard to negate every point the fucking experts make. Just say the catchphrase and stutter winningly. Chuck in some Latin if you must. The usual.

BJ: Business as usual, then.

CDC: Business as usual.

Nothing to see here. Nothing. Move on, move on. Phew.

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON : Home Secretary and cheerleader of foreign militaries, Priti Patel, has announced she has set up a “task force” to look into the “baffling and escalating” levels of truancy in British schools.

“I have full confidence that the Home Office’s Task Force Truant will find out which families are encouraging their children to skip school. Once the guilty are identified measures will be taken,” Ms Patel said, with her best serious face, before smiling.

While it’s currently a closely guarded secret who is on the task force, and how many are involved, the level of truancy is out in the open for all to see. People are suddenly very brazen about it.

“This time last year there were no truants,” Ms Patel continued, “but during the later half of March and through April there have now been three hundred thousand, and thirty four, nine hundred and seventy four thousand students skipping school. Personally, I blame the parents.”

What sanctions the guilty parties will face, once identified, are also clear.

“Deportation,” Ms Patel beamed, “perhaps the best English word ever invented. It’s my favourite. Capital is second. Punishment third. My favourite colour is of course blue. And everyone knows my favourite number.”

But it wasn’t all bad news, Ms Patel has a secret army of left leaning male fans on Twitter, some of whom have confessed to thinking she’s hot, and she has a number of Home Office successes to trumpet.

“Shoplifting has fallen through the floor, relative to last year, when there was no Coronavirus. So too high street attacks by Great White Sharks and deaths by lightning strikes on Ben Nevis.”

All can feel confident that with the disgraced former Minister for International Development overseeing Task Force Truant, that success is assured.

“It’s funny, isn’t it,” Ms Patel is reported to have mused, “once upon a time being caught running a private foreign policy agenda with a foreign military would have seen you thrown out of politics, your political party and never again be in government. But these days? The modern Conservative Party has gone back to traditional politics. Which is something I personally smile a lot about. There’s absolutely no harm to the democratic institutions of the United Kingdom by allowing gross misdeeds in public office to go unpunished.”

To smirk or not to smirk? There’s only one answer to that question.

NO TIME TO LOSE : A well placed and entirely fictitious Downing Street source has confirmed today that an official slogan has been adopted to make best use of the unending bin fire of the Johnson/Cummings’ premiership.

“Nunc est tempus procedens reprehendat studium primus minister,” the source said, “old Jacob had his children do the translation as part of their home schooling.”

The release of the slogan is being timed for maximum benefit, with the decision of NHS staff to work without sufficient PPE continuing to distract from the business of sensible and pragmatic governance.

“It’s really a gift,” the source went on, “both the Prime Minister’s new motto and Covid-19. We thought we’d need the cover of No Deal Brexit to completely remake the U.K. in the image of US corporate interests, but here’s a distracting virus. Two dead cat rich environments for the price of one!”

You couldn’t make it up.

But it wasn’t all plain sailing, with a raft of different ancient languages in the running for the slogan.

Latin was eventually chosen, after fierce debate between Johnson and his SPADS at Chequers, over a bottle of Chateau Lator 1950, as Latin is believed to be more accessible to the average voter, even though Mr Johnson’s personal choice was half remembered Ancient Greek.

Which only adds to speculation about who is really running the government. But now is not the time to ask that question either.

FOLLOWING THE SCIENCE OF CHABLIS BORDEAUX AND CHAMPAGNE : The prime minister’s dwindling band of mouthy supporters have struck back today against Rupert Murdoch’s plan to replace Boris “took it on the chin” Johnson with the man-tadpole called Gove.

“These libellous rumours that Mr Johnson missed five consecutive Cobra meetings over Coronavirus are true,” an imagined source told LCD Views, “He basically greets such invites in the same robust, defective way he does invites to a birthday party for a child he may, or may not, have fathered.”

Governs like he parents?

“Too much like hard work. Anyway, he didn’t need to go in person because Dominic Cummings was at every one of them. Dominic does policy. Boris does world king. And Dominic has some really far out ideas about how to solve the social care crisis. Like magic. But don’t take that to mean the prime minister never turns up to Cobra.”

So which Cobra meetings does he attend?

“The ones he deems vital to his style of viral governance,” the source confirmed, “the ones to do with securing the constant flow of wine into, and just as vitally, out of the cellars at Chequers, Chevening and 10 Downing Street. He personally convened those ones.”

So guiding the country through crisis is all about a consistent approach?

“That’s it. And following the science both of avoidance of accountability and dishing out the blame.”

Don’t clap for Boris. Raise a glass of Chateau Idiotese 1964. Much more appropriate.

OPERATION LAST GASP : Rumours in the political mills this morning that the old Emperor of the post colonial British Empire, plucky Australian/British/American upstart Rupert Murdoch is ready to change his prime minister again.

“All the little Satans are in a frenzy,” our Satanic mill correspondent reports, “pokers are being sharpened and heated, racks are being restrung, and the political gallows are being erected in the shadow of the giant brass toilet.”

The reason for the frenzy appears to be a reaction to a Twitter feed..

“Mrs MacBeth is almost clinically insane these days with thwarted ambition and she let’s her boss Rupert know about it,” our correspondent continues, “Mr Murdoch can’t sleep at the best of times anyway without that ‘mad English fart’ sounding off. And with the fall of democracy in English speaking, Western countries being partially incomplete. Jerry does her best, but he wakes sweating, screaming about “razing farking Liverpool to the ground and car parking the lot of it”. So something has to be done in the service of a good night’s rest.”

And that something appears to be the shock revelation of Prime Minister Johnson’s blithe and disinterested approach to the pre-match stage of U.K. v CV-19.

“Clearly anyone without blinkers on who was paying attention a couple of months back saw immediately that Johnson’s government of entitled bluffers were going to get Covid done just like they got Brexit (not yet done).”

Shame you can’t gaslight a virus.

“Or delay the consequences of your ideologically driven, human viral sacrificing choices over years and years. Long enough for old Odey to fill his boots again and again. Shame. Pity.”

But what does Mr Murdoch himself say of the rumours?

“Oh he only talks through an ouija board,” our correspondent finishes. “and right now the pointer is blazing out ‘I LIKE TO CHANGE MY PRIME MINISTERS LIKE I CHANGE MY UNDIES. YOU WANT TO MAKE SOMETHING OUT OF IT? WHAT’S I”

The sentence remains unfinished, but Mr Johnson’s sentence appears to have been passed.

ALL MOUTH NO TROUSERS : A leak from Downing Street today reveals a bold new initiative to be launched by government in coming days that will “take the fight to Covid-19”.

The plan, which was intended to be leaked, in order to gauge public appetite for it, will see the new NHS Nightingale hospitals transformed into “red, white and blue nerve centres of patriotic flags and bunting”.

“Covid-19 won’t see this coming,” a genius advising the government told LCD Views, “it’ll be so wrapped up in feel good nationalist fervour it will sit down with nausea and retch. That’s when we’ll deal the killer blow.”

What the killer blow is exactly remains under wraps, but it’s believed to be a badge of some variety.

“When this virus was busy mutating in Tufton Street, I mean, in bats and pangolins, it never dreamed one day it would face thousands of freshly ironed Union Jack flags. England will be so festooned in symbolism it won’t matter that what we’re actually doing is still herd immunity. What’s a few tens of thousands of economically inactive dead between friends? Hey? Grandparents. Huh! What are they good for? Huh! Say it again.”

It’s fair to hypothesise that the nerds running Germany, with their elected officials and their PhD’s and their pragmatism, and the bleeding heart snowflakes running New Zealand, with their voluntary pay cuts by MPs and commitment to the sanctity of life, can learn more than a thing or two by watching how we go about CV-19.

But what if the leak reveals there’s little public appetite for thousands of flags? That what anyone paying any attention at all wants is proper PPE for all people on the front lines and a regime of testing, testing, contact tracing and isolation?

“Then we’ll announce some big showy numbers so client journalists can run with it and meanwhile we’ll keep hanging flags. Simple.”