Category: Governing the people

He has risen! He had risen indeed. And gone straight home to bed.

Boris Johnson’s miraculous, not to say stage managed, resurrection on Easter Sunday is going well. It has generated a huge amount of sycophantic sympathy, which means he won’t be asked to take the rap for anything this week.

Adding to the miracle, he was able to make a five minute speech without pausing for breath. Pretty good for a man recovering from a lethal lung infection.

Instead he will be “working from home”. Working from home is one of those rare phrases where you can actually hear the quotation marks. Johnson is setting an example to the rest of the country by failing to do any sort of useful work from his comfy sofa at Chequers.

No change there, then.

In order to make his intentions crystal clear, Johnson has ordered a large quantity of wine. This has two benefits. Firstly, it means he has plenty of wine boxes to paint. It’s something to do. Secondly, if he ever needs to make a public appearance, he can pass off his hangover as a recurrence of covid-19.

Meanwhile all the useful people in the country are doing the essential work of contracting covid-19, so the rest of us don’t have to. All the nurses, doctors, supermarket staff, delivery drivers, and so on will be martyrs to the Herd Immunity “strategy”.

Who will be left? Apart from Boris Johnson, all the other people whose jobs, it turns out, were not that essential after all. The Earth will become a global B-Ark, populated by all the useless people. It bodes well for the future.

So while Boris Johnson stays safely locked away at Chequers, drinking and painting wine boxes, somebody needs to come up with an answer to this crisis, and quickly.

It will probably be 42. Or, if Priti Patel is involved, 4 hundredty thousand and two-ty  squillion.

WHAT SOMEONE’S WORTH : UK’S HOME SECRETARY, PRITI ‘resigned in disgrace in 2017’ PATEL is said to be resting comfortably and self isolating at home during the Covid-19 crisis.

“You get the leaders you deserve,” our home affairs analyst says, somewhat glumly, “Ms Patel was forced to resign by Theresa May in 2017 after a catalogue of dodgy dealings with the IDF was exposed. Apparently she was trying to funnel taxpayer’s money to them? Still, not something that should stop people voting her in again, is it? If the Tories won’t clean house themselves. Not in the 21st Century. So yes, you get the government the people of Witham deserve. And numerous other places.”

But while that’s all well and good, the geographical location of the holder of one of the great offices of state is becoming a concern.

“I don’t see why? Have you seen the damage she does? All that fuelling of xenophobia and the base human hating guff she peddles? You should be happy she’s hiding out. Yes, she can work from home, presumably, but. Well. Okay. She’s probably working up an action plan for how to deal with CV-19 infections in immigration detention centres as we speak.”

Nail the doors shut and look again in a week?

“Ms Patel’s door? If you like. I wouldn’t worry about it. I’m sure the Home Secretary is surplus to requirements. Raab has it all in hand, metaphorically speaking. And once it’s safe to slag off Polish bin men again Ms Patel will be the first you’ll hear speak.”

First Brexit, now CV-19. The UK has seen some very choppy waters in recent years. Now Labour wants to Steer the UK into Calmer seas. Labour’s new slogan promises to Make Politics Boring Again.

Steer Calmer is the phrase on everybody’s lips. No more floundering in the muddy waters of Lake Corbyn, no more desperate struggles to hitch the bandwagon to HMS Boris Johnson. Instead we are expecting oil to be poured onto the UK’s troubled waters.

This is a distinct change from the current Prime Minister In Hiding, whose instincts lead him not to pour oil on troubled waters, but to build a bridge over them instead.

This is the moment that lefty snowflakes have been waiting for. The Left may sometimes have better policies, but the Right usually has the better slogans. No slogan is better than a bad slogan, and Steer Calmer is not too bad as these things go.

A slogan in itself cannot create ventilators out of thin air, or bring harmony to international talks. But, by soothing the people and the economy, maybe the good old Magic Money Tree will be tempted to bear fruit.

Naturally, the world’s media all wanted to Zoom in on the slogan from the safety of their bedrooms. “Steer Calmer means Steer Calmer,” began the slogan, promisingly. Hundreds of eager hacks jabbed frantically at their bedside laptops. “It is an honour to be the new slogan of the Labour Party. New Labour, new slogan!” This was terrific stuff. Keyboards up and down the country were seeing action on a Saturday morning for the first time in decades. “My first priority is to preserve the NHS. And not by boiling it with sugar like my predecessor. I will un-jam the health service!”

The connection collapsed like the promise of free broadband, as every hack tried to ask a question at the same time. The virtual press conference was dead in the water.

Now there is only one thing for it. Get Boris Done.

THIS IS FINE : DOWNING STREET HAS RESPONDED to criticism of its Covid-19 strategy by hiring in the spin doctors that did so much for the great British public in the Brexit and GE campaigns.

The first thing that any sensible country needs in a pandemic is coherent messaging in favour of the governing political elite. The British people can rest assured now that such complex chants as “Get Coronavirus Done!” will soon take the place of policy.

“But we’re doing more,” a Tory MP (who no one has ever heard of before) told LCD Views, “it’s my turn in the media spotlight today. Just for 24hours, that’s the average self life of a Tory MP sent out to dissemble and bullshit the pubic during the CV crisis. It’s like aerial combat in WW1 [Ed. It’s not].”

And one of the raft of new measures to hit the ground running and lie in front of the Covid-19 bulldozer is mass public testing. Just like Germany and South Korea, but more British.

“If you don’t know where the Blitz Spirit is how are you supposed to employ it to combat a virus?” the Tory MP asked, and looked very satisfied.

“Some silly countries aren’t using herd immunity, they’re actually mass testing to try and save lives. As if that’s the job of government?! You can’t save people who will die anyway one day, but you can plant yourself and your staff in front of the tax havens and say Thou Shall Not Pass!”

As part of the drive upwards of 100,000 people a day will soon be tested to see if they have the magic ingredient needed to combat the virus.

“If you have Blitz Spirit you’ll be given a roll of toilet paper and told you can go back to work,” the MP nodded, “the virus doesn’t stand a chance.”

Message to the front line: “I say, you fine young men and women at the sharp end of the NHS, you’re laying down your lives for England! Jolly good show! When the War On Coronavirus is won – and England WILL win – we will remember your sacrifice. Whew! Spiffing! Did I leave anything out?”

Not bad for a first draft, but it does lack references to Spitfires and the Blitz Spirit.

Boris Johnson is to write to everybody working in the NHS to thank them for dying of CV-19, so nobody else has to. The envelopes will be sealed by Johnson’s virusy fingers, and the stamps licked by his virusy tongue. Recipients are advised to wash the letters in soap and water for 20 seconds before opening.

The letter is being cobbled together by whichever people in Number Ten are still free of the virus and at least semi literate. Lacking the guidance of head honcho Dominic Cummings, the letter is rather freeform and stylistically inconsistent. So no change there.

Amidst the waffle and the non sequiturs rests the phrase “taking one for the team”. Rumours suggest that Johnson himself inserted this particularly offensive metaphor, thinking it amusing.

Cummings would not have permitted this. He keeps Johnson on a very tight leash, although occasionally random wiff waff does slip out. However, Cummings was last seen loping away from the Downing Street back door and straight into self isolation. Maybe Carrie Symonds was tired of being the third wheel in the relationship.

NHS staff are utterly delighted to be congratulated in this way. “I think it’s fantastic to get such high profile recognition!” gushed nurse Tori Plant. Her remarks were later discredited since she was discovered to be a Tory plant.

Most NHS employees would rather have some decent PPE, but then some people do like to whinge on about health and safety. They have already had a round of applause, what more do they want of us?

Meanwhile, the foot soldiers on the front line ponder the old lie: Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori.

Nothing to see here: it’s all going so well. Joined up, big government is the order of the day. Unfortunately we don’t have anything like that in this country. Boris Johnson is leaving the big decisions to individual householders.

This is a bold move. At a stroke, Johnson has avoided both responsibility and the need to do any work.

The message, when it arrives with a fresh FREE sample of coronavirus straight from 10 Downing Street, will contain not just one letter but two. One will argue the case in favour of CV19, and the other against.

LCD Views contacted the Prime Minister’s office, and the only available ‘source’ spoke to our My Indecision Is Final correspondent.

“Make this quick, I need another power nap,” purred the ‘source’, who turned out to be none other than Larry the Cat. “As the only inhabitant of Downing Street not infected with CV19, I’ve had a very busy day.”

Why the two letters, we wanted to know.

Larry slowly stretched out in the weak spring sunshine and yawned. “Got any cat treats?” he asked, finally.

Half a packet of Dreamies later, he was able to give us some insight.

“I don’t think the big blond human has a single thought in his scruffy head,” he miaowed. “Now that the other human has scarpered, you know, the bald psychopathic one… err…”

You mean Dominic Cummings?

“Yeah, that’s the one,” agreed Larry. “So, Scruffy doesn’t know what to think without Psycho whispering in his ear, and I think that he is trying to duck the issue while appearing to take decisive action.”

Johnson will have more splinters in his bum than Jeremy Corbyn!

“Who?” asked Larry.

The old, useless one who falls asleep on trains.

“Oh, yeah,” yawned Larry. “Shame he didn’t become PM, I was planning to crap on the bed every night if he won. Sort the podium for me, will you?”

And with that Larry strolled back into Number Ten.

The decision is yours. Herd immunity, or heard enough?

WHATEVER IT TAKES : Downing Street has shed new light today on the measures being taken to combat CV19.

Following on from the Prime Minister’s impersonation of someone who gives a toss last night, a Downing Street ‘source’ has answered questions regarding overcrowding on train services in and out of London.

“These are key workers travelling to key work,” the source shrugged, “it’s key we keep them moving and we’ll do whatever it takes. Just today I read about a nurse who had to travel from Zone 4 to Zone 1 to work in a hospital. You don’t want her to feel all alone? Like the world is ending. Do you?”

But that’s precisely how people need to feel at the moment, surely? Especially on mass transport. In order to feel confident they’re being protected as they put themselves on the line for all of us.

“That’s why we’re running a much reduced service.”

But you’re turning train services into superspreaders? Potentially? Aren’t you? Especially now as the disease is growing at a frightening exponential.

By reducing the services available, people are jamming in together. It’s horrifying. What about running a normal time table and scaling it back to what’s required to provide both transport and social distancing in transit?

“You mean like think ahead and sensibly calibrate the service? Show a minimum of competence?”

Exactly. Phew.

“I’m not too sure about that,” the source scowled, “by running a reduced service for people, forcing them to jam in next to each other, by doing that we are keeping a feeling on the trains of business as usual.”

LAST MAN STANDING : Britons puzzled why their government is so reluctant to lockdown the country have received welcome explanation toady direct from the heart of government.

Speaking directly to LCD Views, and keeping a socially respectful distance (imaginary sources are excellent at social distancing), a Downing Street ‘source’ outlined the thinking.

“Well, clearly we’re still doing herd immunity as the Covid-19 policy. Just not officially. But until we legally impose restrictions it’s the policy by default. You know the one? Let it sweep through the population? Build up herd immunity to a virus from a class humans have never built up herd immunity to without a vaccine. That’s the policy.”

But surely we should look to the example of countries that didn’t have our advantage of time lag? What did they get right? What did they get wrong?

“Foreign chaps? What could foreign chaps possibly teach Britons about a virus? A blue passport and a commemorative Brexit 50p is all the protection you need against a killer cold.”

Is it your hope then that people who exploded out of London at the end of last week are carrying those special talismans with them?

“Yes. Covid-19 is now in all nooks and crannies of the UK. Excellent work. More than a few pensioners will die now. It’s very exciting, running your approach to a pandemic crisis in the same way we dealt with Brexit. Triangulate. Rumour. Counter rumour. Vague suggestions. Contradictory information. We’ll get Covid-19 delivered.”

But surely, given we’re two weeks behind Italy, and Italy is a scene of terrible humanitarian crisis, we need to lockdown now. We should have locked down with other countries did.

“Stop the party? No. No. Mr Johnson doesn’t want to be the stick in the mud that stops the music playing. That’s not his style. He wants to be loved. He wants to be popular.”

So the devastating mismanagement of Coronavirus is just Boris being Boris?

“Exciting isn’t it? Herd immunity. It’s still the policy. Just not officially.”

BLITZING THE UNAVOIDABLE SHITMINSTER : THE UNITED KINGDOM has received some much needed advice today from Reality, which stopped by to have a world.

“I see you’re in a crisis about the Coronavirus crisis,” Mr Reality stated, nodding soberly.

We are. Nice of you to stop by. What would you like to tell our audience?

“You’ve such a fetishisation in certain demographics of population and media for WW2. I’m surprised you are taking so long to work out one of the key lessons that the period offers. So far as early crisis management goes.”

Which is?

“When you’re entering an extended crisis, which is now inevitable due to the poor decisions of the current government, the first thing you need to ensure is new, sound leadership.”

We have a government.

“I didn’t say you didn’t have a government.”

It’s just that they don’t appear sound.

“They don’t, do they.”

So what should we do?

“What did they do in WW2? What did Neville Chamberlain do?”

He found his political support evaporating and he stood down. Winston Churchill took over as prime minister with cross party support.

“What should Boris Johnson do?”

Well, judging only by the Sunday papers he’s hanging Cummings out to dry.

“He should go with him. Then you lot should form a government of national unity, cross party, with a credible prime minister leading it. One with an attention span greater than a gnat’s.”

Then what?

“If you choose wisely, they’ll know what to do. But I’d start by listening to the WHO.”

Nerr, I’ve gone off them since Daltrey revealed himself as a kipper.

“The World Health Organisation, you wally.”

“Roger that.”

Roger who?

Roger that. Listen to the World Health Organisation and not Dom.

UNELECTED SPAD SPAFFS TIME ADVANTAGE AGAINST WALL OF FATE : Britain’s unelected prime minister, Dominic ‘out on his ear soon’ Cummings has used his client journalists to give Covid—19 a message.

“Come back here and I’ll bite your legs off!”

The message, which it’s assumed Covid-19 will ignore, follows on from a tussle between the unelected official and the new killer virus.

Till now it seems Mr Cummings has been deciding the UK’s pandemic strategy, to save Mr Johnson the effort. So boring, poor people dying in droves, just get on with it.

Just imagine that Great Britain, an unelected official has been governing Britain. The ironies and idiocies of Brexit, always a viral sickness in the body politic, now become real and fuelling a crisis.

How the mighty have allowed themselves to become fallen.

As to the tussle itself, first Coronavirus took Mr Cumming’s arms and then it took his legs, leaving the UK ‘armless in the face of pandemic crisis.

“It goes to show that you can’t run a pandemic crisis the way you’ve run Brexit,” our full time pandemic (new employee – although has been working freelance for some weeks) analyst comments.

“I’m not sure why Cummings is seen as such a genius? He got Brexit done because all the proven dodgy methods were useful to politicians, who were themselves amoral voids. So he was politically protected. This is not a genius, except I guess in the failed human field of taking advantage of people’s fears and lesser instincts.”

Get Cummings Done. Let’s get a competent administration that can manage the crisis. Emotionally retarded little boys grown into men are not going to do anything but lose their heads, and ours.