Coping strategy. Mostly focused on politics. We make up the news so you don't have to.
A fed up old mother of parliaments has begun to troll the MPs inside her both symbolically and in actuality.
”I wasn’t intending to troll them,” The Palace of Westminster told LCD Views in an exclusive, “I was just having a quiet sniffle. I was remembering Gladstone, Churchill, Attlee, Pitt the Foetus and any number of great parliamentarians I’ve seen over the years. May Erskine! Well. I was having a quiet sniffle thinking of how I now have Grayling, May, some career politician more interested in gardening than challenging an illegally procured result in a poll, Davis, Jenkyns, Jenkins, Cash, Redwood, Rees-mogg, Baker, Barclay, HandonCock, Williamson, Bridgen and oh any number of complete and utter nimcompoops, well excuse me, but what am I supposed to do with all that?! A sniffle quickly turned into out and out sobs!”
So that’s how the flooded that adjourned the Commons chamber started?
”Of course. But now I’m just laughing. I’m sitting here thinking up what next? Maybe a gas leak next time Irritable Duncan Syndrome gets going? Rotten eggs. Just like the man’s brains. Sound off the fire alarms when Raab starts bleating? There’s any number of things I could do to clear the place day after day and get some peace and quiet.”
But how will they get anything done?
”Did you listen to that list? Getting anything done is the least of their concerns. I’m mindful just to collapse my ceiling in completely.”
But how will they get Brexit done? You troll them all that hard they’ll have to go for a long Article 50 extension while they rebuild?
”Precisely.”
LCD Views can report on a sudden and accelerating interest in digital technology today. Soon after we made it up a rumour began circulating that governor of the 51st state of Trump’s America, Theresa May, said she was close to agreeing to another EU referendum to break a legislative deadlock at the state capital.
“This is likely to make Britain a world leader in AI technology,” LCD Views democratic science correspondent declared, “to actually achieve poll participating algorithms? To cut out the middle man or woman, i.e. the physical voter, well, think of the money governments will save? And think of the return on investment for all the dark money sloshing about in bot farms?”
While it’s not yet clear if the tech upgrade will be ready in time for any confirmatory referendum on the UK’s relationship with both the EU and America, it’s thought the government has its best people working on it.
“Anyone with business dealings who coincidentally happens to be an elected representative at Westminster has been asked to contribute. Especially MPs who’s social media accounts tend to get a lot of traffic from profiles with sub 100 followers, but set up years ago. We need experts on the case if we’re to make a success of it and get it done in time.”
Critics of the proposal have jumped on the bandwagon though, claiming it’s bad enough already with misinformation and prejudice being pumped through the veins of democracy via social media from bot farms, without actually letting the bots vote.
But what do we care what they’ve got to say, the people have decided and now it’s the turn of the bots to rule.
Wannabe PM Boris Johnson has had his leadership ambitions severely damaged once again. Following a cosy cup of tea with Tony Blair, Boris realised that his credentials had slipped down the back of his sofa.
Suggestions that he should jump on top of it and have a jolly good rummage around were scotched by the man himself.
“Quite honestly, the only thing I should be jumping on top of is that rather fine filly holidaying with me in Italy,” he spluttered. “The going is good to firm, luckily, and after all the jumps I will have a good rummage about!”
Johnson indicated that we should “bugger orff, you nosey pleb”, and ask his gentleman’s gentleman to search his furniture if we were that way inclined.
We felt a mixture of excitement and trepidation as we were ushered into “Bonking” Boris’ throne room. We took up our position on the large, comfortable settee as the flunkey went to fetch radiation-proof gauntlets and a skip.
First plunge. At first, we thought we had come up trumps. However, all that appeared was the tattered shreds of Boris’ credibility. Straight into the skip.
Second effort. Several large, heavy and clearly unfinished bridges came to light, none of which managed to span the Thames, the English Channel or the Irish Sea. Crash, bang, wallop.
Third time lucky? A sheaf of papers. No, not his leadership credentials, but forcefully worded polemics in favour of remaining in the EU. Totally useless now, of course.
Once more, like a small child desperately trying to win the lucky dip. This time, what appeared to be a severed pig’s head. In the subsequent, delicately chosen, words of the forensic scientist, it “looked like it had been interfered with”.
We also discovered vast sums of public money. But no sign of his leadership credentials.
It looks like BoJo has finally lost his mojo.
It has come to our ears that in order to secure this week’s fourth Meaningful Vote (MV), Government has come up with a cunning plan. It has decided to replace all references to the “European Union” with “Lalalaland”.
Over the weekend, Westminster strategists have been desperately trying to come up with new ways to sell the Withdrawal Agreement (WA) a fourth time to the House of Commons. Since the Speaker’s ruling, Government has added the so-called European leaders’ letters of clarification – in essence, brief cliff notes for MP’s explaining the 585 pages of the WA in laymen’s terms – for MV2. It then ditched the non-binding Political Agreement for the third vote. Now the idea is to replace all references to the EU with “Lalalaland” ahead of the prospected fourth vote.
One source told LCD Views that “this allows us for almost every no-voter to come on board”. Remoaner MP’s would not care to severe the UK’s ties with an oneiric place like Lalalaland, whereas the Little England ones would not be bothered to take rulings from it, he added. “It also has the advantage of smothering any concerns about the vilified backstop. Who cares if we have a land border with Lalalaland, or regulatory alignment with it?”
For legal purposes, somewhere hidden in the 585 pages of the WA would be a footnote explaining that Lalalaland stands for the EU. But what if MPs will find out about this? Our source: “Hahaha. You don’t actually think they actually read all 585 pages of the WA, do you? [Continues laughing hysterically. Five minutes later: ] Well, we only must prepare for two persons who might actually read it: Dominic Grieve and the Attorney-General, Geoffrey Cox.”
“We already dealt with the former by sending in a horde of paid Leave-zealots to his Constituency in Beaconsfield. He will be distracted by that for the time being, we hope. As to the Attorney-General, we plan on sending in Raab and Rees-Moog. They will distract him in his office bestowing upon him the virtues of a Brexit deal, like sovereignty from the ECJ and tax evasion possibilities once Raab becomes PM.”
If you have any ideas how the Government might sugar-coat the fifth, sixth, etc. vote on the WA? Do share your cunning suggestions on Twitter @emielnachtegael
The Maybot is, incredibly, still functioning. Its batteries keep producing power from somewhere, and nobody can locate the switch that will turn it off.
It can no longer be considered as a contestant on Strictly. Its voice sounds more like Stephen Hawking every time it speaks. It no longer has the energy to push for a third Meaningless Vote, the latest attempt only ranks as MV 2-and-a-half. And still the off switch remains elusive.
It is unfit for Robot Wars, or even Scrapheap Challenge. Its only virtue, it seems, is to be the last man standing.
The Maybot even offered to deactivate itself, in return for supporting MV 2-and-a-half. This failed because the deal was a humungous pile of steaming dung, which even the ERG could not stomach. Maybe the Maybot doesn’t know where the off switch is, either.
“We’ve been trying to turn it off for months now,” hardliner Dee Lornodeal told LCD Views. “Our best men are on the case.”
‘Our best men’ turn out to be Boris Johnson and Chris Grayling. “I’m completely disfurbulated, I must say,” spaffed Johnson. “I know where to find the button to turn a woman on, God damn it, but I’m buggered if I can find the Maybot’s off switch. Once more unto the breach, my friends!”
Meanwhile Grayling was throwing money at the problem. “I’ve come up with a technological solution!” he burbled. “I found a little company called drainyoucompletely.com. Their website promises to remove every last bit of juice from you. Well, that sounded just perfect, so I bunged them a few mill and let them do their worst. Strangely, my inbox is now clogged up with dirty pictures, so I can’t tell you any more. I’m off to ask Damien Green for advice.”
Typical men. They clearly didn’t read the instruction manual before setting the thing in motion. Cliff edge, here we come.
The prime minister of the United Kingdom, who has a record of doing what she says she will that’s as credible as norovirus promising a pleasant cruise on a ship, took to the stage in a London backroom earlier this evening to make a tantalising offer.
“Look, we’re all completely punch drunk on nostalgia for the good old days,” the pm told a room totally representative of the country, “and so we want to burn the modern world. You want to burn it because you don’t like hearing funny voices in public. I want to burn it because I don’t like smelling funny food when I’m walking to church on Sundays. So here’s my offer, I’ll set fire to our Wicker Man myself if everyone in the United Kingdom will just get inside with me.”
The offer, with its old world appeal (about 2000 BC) certainly set the room alight. Mostly because of the opportunity it seemed to offer to certain people in the room who wanted to see the woman burn, while setting fire to the country, and then hoped to run away while everyone else was climbing in, in order to rule the ashes.
”It’s going to play exceptionally well with the country,” a BBC reporter is likely to tweet later, “the noble self sacrifice of a leader who has delivered on the overwhelming mandate delivered by the country to burn itself to cinders. I can’t see how anyone could fail to acknowledge the nobility of the offer.”
Various prominent men were also quick to take up the offer.
”I’ll strike the bally match for her! What ho! What a hoot!” a blonde ball bag with an act told us, “and then I’ll seize the reigns of power and impregnate every young filly in the land.”
How could any of this possibly go wrong?
A woman who believes herself to be doing God’s work is busy this morning ignoring the message God sent her last night.
”She’s just going to carry on as if nothing bad happened yesterday,” Mr Pickering, owner of Cotton Wool R Us, which supplies ear stuffings for 10 Downing Street told us, “I know this because around 11pm last night I received a massive order of ear suitable cotton wool.”
The order, promptly delivered by courier moments after the woman received the message from on high, wasn’t the only one.
”I’m retiring to the south of France today,” tin supplier, Mr Ears, also advised, “really I am. I hope I get to stay there after the 12th of April. The order last night for a set of tin ears was so insane it was like winning the lottery.”
There were apparently also orders from ‘The All Thumbs” firm of handy equipment and ‘Cack Hands’.
”It’s a great time to be in toilet tissue too,” our economic analyst tells us, “insiders in the treasury tell me that a new battle is raging between May and the Chancellor after she insisted on an emergency fund of several billion to keep the Tory Party supplied with four ply paper during the indicative votes process.”
Is this because they’re all crapping themselves?
”Not all. The really insane ones are fine. But anyone with a brushing relationship with reality is running to talk to God on the white telephone from both ends. They know if they can’t kill Brexit themselves and fast, they’re going down the S-bend of history.”
That’s nice to know.
So what’s next for the occupant of 10 Downing Street?
”Fit her latest set of tin ears, stuff them with cotton wool and give a speech which doesn’t acknowledge last night’s historical defeat, would be my guess.”
How will the speech begin?
”The British people…”
Oh God, anyone have the number for Cotton Wool R Us?”
Movie mogul and sometime Prime Minister Theresa May has accepted, reluctantly, that Meaningful Vote 3 will not secure a box office release. After two turkeys, there is no appetite for the third episode of the franchise.
The big problem is that the storyline and the characters remain unchanged. Meaningful Vote: Los Angeles or even The Meaningful Vote Zombie Apocalypse would have more appeal. May refused to accept the outcome, with her usual lack of grace.
“All the backers, who promised to support Meaningful Vote 3, have pulled out,” she grumbled. “This sort of release hasn’t received the public acclaim it deserves, and the money launderers and dark financiers are reneging on their promises. I need those roubles to get over the line, and I refuse to accept a DVD-only release.”
Movie critic Hollie Wood gave an independent opinion. “Meaningful Vote 3 is basically the same as MV1 and MV2,” she said. “The heroine is trying to break free from what she sees as a toxic relationship. She demands a divorce, but has so many terms and conditions that her soon-to-be ex-partner despairs. She wants more than her fair share, and refuses to budge. Through the course of the movie, she is forced to compromise, and strikes a deal, which is accepted. But her family insists that the deal is unacceptable and votes her down. Everything is postponed, they all live unhappily ever after, roll credits.”
Which of the three are you describing?
“All three, that’s the problem,” replied Wood. “The original movie, The Meaningful Vote!, followed this pattern exactly. The Return of the Meaningful Vote sprinkled a little magic dust over the sub-plot involving the Irish family members, but it wasn’t much better. The Meaningful Vote Rides Again edits a bit of the stilted dialogue, but it’s essentially the same. I think that May has lost the plot, frankly.”
The Meaningful Vote Rides Again will be available some time this week. Or next week. Or never. Don’t hold your breath.
An aeroplane flying from London to Düsseldorf went missing, before turning up unexpectedly in Edinburgh. The involvement of so-called Transport Secretary Chris Grayling was suspected immediately.
“It’s about time I got a bit more hands-on with this transport malarkey,” a relieved Grayling told LCD Views’ Flights Of Fancy correspondent. “After all, how hard can it be? I got my mate Dominic Raab to help out, just in case. It was like two slapheads arguing over a comb, just like our normal Cabinet meetings!”
That’s an incredible reference to the Falklands conflict.
“What does Falklands even mean?” asked Grayling, with his characteristic vacant expression. “Don’t try to cloud the discussion with facts!”
So let us know what actually happened, then.
“Oh, it was like, it’s my turn with the map, and you have the compass,” replied Grayling. “It’s all about taking back control. We couldn’t manage to work it out, so we just pointed at a random place on the map and told them to fly there. I must say, it was an outstanding success. Nobody died! Although I did try to kick Dom up the arse, but I just ended up injuring his elbow.”
While they were squabbling, the pilot, Gaynor Thousandfeet, put the destination to a People’s Vote. 52% voted unanimously to continue to Düsseldorf, while the 48% who said, fuck it let’s hit the Royal Mile and get pissed on single malt whisky, were, naturally enough, ignored completely.
Investigations revealed that the map used was a special Brexit Edition. This shows Great Britain (with an emphasis on the south-eastern regions), surrounded by sea containing the legend “Here be monsters” in Gothic lettering.
The latest reports indicate that Thousandfeet successfully guided the aeroplane to Düsseldorf. Some of the passengers were still moaning about having to put up with German lager instead of a good Scotch.