Category: Governing the people

Exciting news from the world of light entertainment today with the announcement that struggling broadcaster, British Broadcasting Corporation, is to grab a lifeline by merging with the evergreen Nigel Farage Corp.

“I’m over the moon,” J Bumblephrys, political editor on BBC flagship Yesterday, told our corporate takeover correspondent.

“Although it’s really just cementing what is already an extremely close working relationship, that borders on the shamelessly erotic at times.”

The merger, which is expected to be rubber stamped by DexEU on Friday, will see even more output from the Nigel Farage Corp on the publicly funded airwaves.

“There was a concern that with Nigel’s last light entertainment series, UKIP, receiving less viewers by the day, that the BBC would have to start generating some content of its own again,” Bumblephrys commented, “happily that’s not a concern now with the pilot episode of ‘The Brexit Party’ receiving rave reviews by upper management. Although I personally had ready years of ear grabbing content from NFC to replay in place of actually interrogating the lies to expose them,

“Those days are mercifully gone with the governing directive “will of the people” coming down from the top.”

For his part, CEO of the Nigel Farage Corporation, Nigel Farage, was similarly effusive.

“Imagine if you’ve made a name for yourself whipping up hysteria over emotive subjects that need sober consideration to separate lies from reality and you want to reach the widest possible audience so your shadowy backers get the biggest bang for their buck?”

You need the reach of a taxpayer funded organisation that has forgotten it doesn’t need to chase ratings, and is prepared to work with you in a symbiotic pairing?

“Yes. This merger is a dream come true, even if it’s just cementing in fact what has been happening in practice in reality. My life coach Steve Bannon is very pleased.”

Public response to the announcement is expected to be overwhelmingly positive and will be reported as such by the BBC regards of what it actually is.

“That episode of Yesterday,” Nigel added, “when John said my catchphrase, will of the people, 987 times in five minutes, I knew I’d made it for good then.”

Further reassurance was given to Mr Farage that even if he fails to be re-elected as an MEP the BBC will still provide wall to wall coverage of his every utterance, 25 hours a day, 8 days a week, 400 days a year.

World famous welfare system reformer and humanitarian, Irritable Duncan Syndrome, has announced he’s to spend time in Liverpool Prison.

“It’s about understanding how the average family survives in a prison. It’s vital I get first hand experience of observing the daily grind to better formulate my vision for Universal Incarceration.”

IDS has chosen Liverpool Prison as,

“It’s a shining example of how the social engineering and reform of undeserving poor worked in the 19th century. That’s a place myself, and numerous colleagues on the government benches, wish to return day to day life in 21st England to.

You know, they had transportation then. It was privatised because it made it more cost effective.

Basically you could just dump people who wouldn’t play by the fair rules of the game on the opposite side of the world.

Sorry, we’ll have to stop a moment, I’ve got something nostalgic in my eye.”

While IDS’s latest brainstorm is only just brewing up, we’ve managed to tease out some of the initial thoughts.

“Activities for inmates will include cheese rolling, buffing medallions, standing in a room of other people and not being noticed,” IDS has scribbled down on a yellow legal pad, “the sort of vigorous skills that equip a man for life on the outside.”

Although IDS’s notes hold a warning for those who don’t follow the regime.

“Prison time isn’t free you know. It’s important to ensure being in prison is never more fun than being on the outside.

To this end I will be encouraging a vigorous regime of whipping and beatings.

Worse even than queuing at one of those supermarkets poor people frequent.”

IDS is due to begin his half an hour inside Liverpool Prison just as soon as HM Prison service has managed to mop out a cell of a build up of stools.

“You won’t find spare stools and other seats just piled about unused in my universal incarceration system. Not on your nellie.

In fact, as everyone with a net income of less than the average Conservative Party donor will be forcibly incarcerated to staff the post Brexit industries of tomorrow, you’ll be lucky to find room to put a stool down.”

Stock up on tobacco, once IDS puts his latest reforms into action, you’ll be going down. After appropriate means testing to determine if you’re guilty, of course.

The blood of all true born British men were beating a little stronger today with the news from Jacob Rees-mogg’s new eurosceptic research group that it was confident in the superior quality of British knees.

“Old Bonny will soon be on the run in the Brexit negotiations,” J. Bull, spokesman for the group, told LCD Views.

“The weak livered continentals don’t have the knack of either the high or the long jump. Not got the spine for it. Our modern training methods mean British men have substantially firmer knees.”

It’s believed the research group will recommend advancing negotiations now to the stage where all the chaps involved roll up their trousers and stand in a line.

“The Queen will be a fair judge. We’re certain she will identify the knees of British men as not only firmer, but more dexterous than anything the continent can throw at us. After that there will be no more of this project fear talk.

Forget your divorce bill.

Actually forget divorce as a concept.

Once we’re a modern, free, enterprising, isolated trading sovereign nation again and Jacob is elevated to prime minister, divorce will be the first regressive measure taken in recent years to be outlawed.”

When asked why there was no mention of women in their recommendations, Mr Bull looked surprised.

“We’ve mentioned the Queen forty seven thousand, nine hundred and forty three times, in just the first document.”

Other women?

“Oh, the fairer sex in general? Oh, they’ll be in the home. Breeding for Britain! We’ll need the cannon fodder for when we advance our thinking out of the nineteenth century.”

And what if they’re wrong, what if British knees prove less firm?

“That’s the talk of a collaborator,” Mr Bull replied, with a furrowing brow, “But I’ll let it pass. Let’s just say if it’s a complete and bloody disaster, the negotiations, certain clever fellows will make even more money. The sort that keep their money offshore. But you didn’t hear that from me.”

Mr Bull left at that point in the hope of watching the Battle of the Nile, live.

Let us go back in time, back to before Brexit began, before the flash laziness of George and Dave, before the messiah JC, before the Maybot, all the way back to 1346.

We’ll skip the events in between, because time is short.

1346, when the Black Death began its sweep across the world from east to west.

There is consensus that it killed fifty percent of any community it arrived within, this plague, this pestilence, Yersinia pestis. Some places it killed more and others less, fifty percent is the savage average.

“…earliest symptom was the appearance of certain swellings in the groin or armpit [unlike its first appearance to the east; bleeding from the nose was the first symptom then], some of which were egg-shaped whilst others were roughly the size of a common apple…” (1)

You’ve heard or read all this before, most likely, and how does it resonate with events now?

With Brexit?

This is my query and freedom of movement is the key.

I find strong resonance with the much contested issue of ‘freedom of movement’ within the European Union, that we are currently able to enjoy, or malign, depending on your point of view.

And how do I draw a line between Brexit and the time of the Black Death?

It’s not an attempt to be melodramatic. It is just asking a question to do with resonance.

It’s to do with how the ruling elite in England, in the 14th century, responded to the massive social impact of, and disorder in the aftermath of Yersinia pestis.

They found the labouring classes, the serfs, taking advantage (unfairly, if you were a baron…and had an economic model based on a labour system just above slavery) of the shortage of labour in the country to demand greater rights, greater wages.

King Edward III heard the plaintive cries, of his medieval chumocracy, and responded with a law called the “Statute of Labourers”, passed in 1351.

Here is the extract that catches my eye. That brings to mind Brexit and the desire to crush freedom of movement between the UK and the rest of the EU.

“…seen fit to ordain: that every man and woman of our kingdom of England…shall be bound to serve him who has seen fit so to seek after him; and he shall take only the wages liveries, meed or salary which, were accustomed to be paid…” (2)

There were further measures in the years that followed. This was because not everyone in the elite was able to hold the line. They were guilty of “enticement”. Offering greater wages because they needed the labour on their land and because the labour was happy to go. A little less serfdom cake is an enticing thing.

This “Statute of Labourers” passed in 1351, and other measures, were an attempt to squash freedom of movement of serfs after the great plague.

A move from the elites to suppress wage and conditions through controlling labour movement. To control the lives of the many, by the few, tying them to just one piece of land.

It failed, The Peasants’ Revolt, led by Wat Tyler, in 1381, saw Wat dead and it saw the death of the 1351 law and others.

Ordinary people now had a greater share of rights. Even if there was still a long way to travel.

This change (in England) can be traced back to as a key turning point that led centuries later to the abolition of absolute monarchy, on from there to the industrial revolution and finally universal suffrage and parliamentary democracy in the United Kingdom.

If you control your labour, its physical liberty to move across a landscape and continent, then you have a greater chance to control the wages and conditions of that labour. In short, if you’re a baron you can grow richer by disenfranchising labour of its rights.

We have travelled a long way from 1351. Let us not start going in reverse, lead by blowhards and bus drivers like Boris, Farage and all the others, backed (allegedly) by tax avoiding billionaires.

Long ago the majority of the population was in serfdom. It took centuries to get to now, when all (with limitations our government has seen fit to ignore, for political reasons, I’d suspect) within the union of nations called the European Union can choose where they live, work, study, love and retire.

I can’t help feeling the billionaires, millionaires, MP’s and the extra rabble rousing chancers who have pushed lies about immigration and made names for themselves railing against freedom of movement, have a similar feudal desire to restrict peoples’/workers’ rights.

It’s not just the workers from across the channel whose freedom of movement the Brexiters want to abolish. It’s yours. It’s your children’s.

It means less rights and less of the democracy cake in your hands.

Democracy is one cake we can all have and eat, but only if we defend it against the people who, like their medieval shadows, want to reduce the rights you own.

And it should be asked if, lacking a natural calamity as cover for their plans, the Brexiters have manufactured one?

These are my links between the Brexiters and the ruling elite of 1351.

1. Page 96, “Why Nations Fail” D. Acemoglu & J. A. Robinson, Profile Books
2. Page 99, “Why Nations Fail” D. Acemoglu & J. A. Robinson, Profile Books

In the 17th century in revolutionary France there lurked a mysterious figure amongst the aristocracy. Some thought he (or she) moved to perform deeds of good, others thought the moves were made to avoid the sliding knife of the guillotine.

In the 21st century this mysterious figure has returned, to the dilemma of the media news outlets.

In 2010 he mysteriously wiped away the legal aid programme from the Justice Ministery. This successful imitative lead to the removal of prison officers from HM Prisons.

Southern Rail has felt the hand of the Pimpernel with rail ticket increases quickly followed by rail strikes. Today the HS2 building contract with Carillion lies in shatters. Some say, due to the hand of the Pimpernel.

In frustration Lord Adonis has challenged the Pimpernel to come forward to a verbal duel on a media outlet of their choice. The silence has been deafening.

The grey Pimpernel lurks amongst grey people wearing grey suits and is currently in hiding, preparing to strike again…

In an exclusive interview Transport Secretary Chris Grayling talks to LCD Views about his new life as a hermit.

Q. Mr Grayling, it is Mr, isn’t it? You haven’t received your peerage yet?

No answer.

Q. Well, let’s move on? Why did you decide to crawl into this undiscovered, Neolithic tomb on a subpolar crag of an island hundreds of miles from the nearest, other inhabited island?

No answer.

Q. Okay, I guess that’s too personal. The next question is, what do you have to say to all those sub-contractors likely to go bust as a result of the collapse of Carillion?

A company you awarded massive government contracts to, even though, there were clear signs it was essentially being run like a Ponzi scheme?

No answer.

Q. Let’s push this one a little. I think the people affected by your incompetence deserve an answer, they accepted the work because the government backed Carillion.

No answer.

Q. When are you coming home? Have you letters you would like me to mail when I get back to Orkney?

No answer.

(At this point the transport secretary, who looks a bit cavemanish for having lived in the cave since he dodged questions on the rail fare increases, appears to throw scat at our reporter)

Q. Final question. Do you anticipate enjoying your pension in retirement after a long and glorious ministerial career of turning anything you touch to shit?

That’s what I’ll get my peerage for.

Q. So this is not a vow of silence, just a hermitage?

No answer.

Q. Goodbye Secretary of State for Transport.

A. Don’t tell anyone you found me or I’ll stop all your Southern Rail trains services from running on time. And do me a favour, chase the little devils away from my cave door.

It’s clear he’s lost his mind.

Still, at least he’s still being paid, even for hiding from his responsibilities.

“How could we be expected to foresee a massive business would just collapse, just like that? Without any warning at all?” Cabinet office minister, David Lid-on, asked today, in response to the collapse of Carillion.

“Everyone knows the only party that understands business is the Conservatives. Please put the emphasis on the ‘con’ when saying our name,” Mr Lid-on continued, “UK plc is safe in our hands. Just look at our handling of Brexit. It’s a prime example. With us in charge we should more correctly be referred to as UKIP plc, of course.”

It’s believed the collapse of Carillion, which runs every single public service in the UK, with the exception of the ones G4S run (you remember them, the army covered their asses, after they couldn’t run security at the Olympics, it’s a good thing army numbers have reduced since), will not have any negative impact on the taxpayer at all.

“It’s a great relief,” Mr Lid-on smiled, “I’m personally going to make sure the liquidation goes as smoothly as a car boot sale in a thunderstorm, with only a minor volcanic eruption before the end of trading. This is essentially a dry run for UK plc post March 2019 and Brexit. Firesale! Who doesn’t like one of those? Our neoliberal friends across the pond can’t wait for 2019.”

And the government wants to reassure the former employees of Carillion that they will be okay.

“Our foodbank sector is booming. There is no chance anyone will go hungry as a result of this giant collapsing after winning numerous public contracts while issuing profit warnings. You might lose your home though. Go find seven different gig economy zero hours job pronto.”

Further reassurance was offered to the former bosses of Carillion. Legislative changes in 2016 means they won’t have to pay back their bonuses.

“We should thank George Osborne and David Cameron for their visionary work on austerity. It’s been great for everyone,” Mr Lid-on went on, “You make companies with slim profit margins pretend they can run expensive public sector projects for a profit making loss.

It’s really an exceptionally clever way to run the country.

Germany and France, the Scandinavian countries, they could learn a lot from the way we’ve run the UK since the wisdom of Thatcherism took hold of public policy. What have they done? Total clown shows with limited futures now.”

LCD’s private/public analyst was just as forgiving on the government.

“It’s not fair to bully the Conservative government about their awarding contracts to Carillion, even as the stock market was short selling it. They’re the party of business. Keep repeating that and don’t look at the national debt under their stewardship.

Besides, how can they have been expected to foresee this? They can’t foresee anything.”

Jeremy Hunt’s workload was pleasantly lighter this afternoon after minister for Transport, Chris Grayling, was drafted in to oversee the NHS for him.

“Chris has spare time on his hands now he’s no longer lobbying to give his friends at Carillion extra government contracts,” a spokesman for the department for health told LCD Views.

“He was spending his time today just phoning up Downing Street asking if there was anything he could do? And scanning Expedia for good deals on middle eastern flights, so it’s nice for him to be able to help somewhere with all his free time.”

It’s thought the helping hands will allow Jeremy Hunt to properly prepare primary, post Brexit legislation, that will hand the entirety of the NHS over to Virgin Health, as a reward for Richard Branson reversing the refusal of his toy train set to stock the Daily Mail.

“Chris has a proven track record of handing massive amounts of public money and responsibility over to companies issuing profit warnings.

He’s the right man to advise on the awarding of new NHS contracts to private partners whose only concerns are people’s health and well-being.

This should only serve to accelerate the collapse of the NHS, by decisions not being taken on merit or best practise at government level, and its lockstock privatisation.

Something we can all be proud of in the Conservative Party.

It’s really a legacy issue.

Our membership will have physically died out soon, so they won’t need the NHS. We’re trying to leave something to the neoliberals of tomorrow.”

Mr Hunt is said to have offered no resistance when Downing Street phoned him up to make him aware of the splitting of his duties.

“Jeremy wears his heart on his sleeve,” the spokesman added, “well, he wears someone’s heart there. He’ll always help out a friend.”

LCD Views’ public health analyst has this to say.

“That’s the NHS royally f*cked then. If I were you, and you have school age dependents, I’d be bloody sure you get them into medical school.”

It’s thought in this way you can secure being able to see a GP in the future.

“And you’ll get to discuss how big their bonuses are each Christmas, if you’re lucky enough to see them, if they haven’t been worked to death from exhaustion.”

Grayling wasn’t asked for comment as everyone has now realised that’s pointless.

Exciting news today for the world of print, politics and fact as famed reporter and prominent public servant Boris Johnson has announced he will be hunting down the truth again to make sure it’s dead.

“Some ah, fibblefabbles, have claimed I can’t combine the glorious British tradition of hunting the truth with my duties as foreign secretary of the Kingdom of England. This is sheer ninnybaggle.”

Boris goes on to cite his work with Iran.

“That, um, ah, that lady tourist arrested for writing on postcards, she’s still in prison over there because the government, allegedly, won’t stump up the pots of silver and gold demanded to stop her wasting away in prison. I can continue to vaguely lobby the Shah whilst reading the signs written by truth stool in the sands.”

Asked what weapon he will arm himself with on safari, Boris seemed very enthusiastic.

“I’ve um, adapted, redesigned, reconfigured various facts to kill truth on contact. They’re so twisted and covered in waffle gobble I don’t think even a bull truth fact could survive.”

Boris added that he had managed to combine the job of tour bus operator and part time MP for Somewhere back in 2016.

“Anyone who tells you a man can’t multitask is talking sniffle snoffle. I can go on the road three hundred days a year raffle wrangling the public to a point of near ecstasy with my exhortations to reach the glorious heights of Global Britain 2.0, Imperial Reboot edition, while picking a fight with the Mayor of London because if Trump goes down all the populist, lunatic, narcissistic, self interested spam bogglers like myself go down too by osmosis!”

Boris finished by saying he’d be applying for the job of editor at Breitbart while away in safari, because he’ll have time in the evenings around the campfire.

“And I wouldn’t want to get rusty as a hack. I’ll most likely return to journalism full part time once I resign in disgrace later this year.”

Good luck Bojo. Bag a whopper for us.

A woman already famous for aching to bring back fox hunting and fracking has confirmed her deep desire to protect the environment.

“I’m not sure which environment,” the woman said earlier, “probably the one over there, the one without any frackable gas under the fly tipping.”

She went on to counter accusations that the rebranding of her party from one who’d shoot the last polar bear if there was a pound of profit to be had, to a party more green than the Greens, is not a cynical, shallow reaction to the sudden awareness no one under seventy is ever going to vote for them again.

“Pretending to love the environment with long term, largely detail free assertions, is the best way to win back young people,” a friend of the woman said, “Just because I’m known for stabbing my friends in the back, doesn’t mean you can’t trust me on this.”

Young people are likely to be fooled by this pitch, forget the crushing of their dreams related to EU membership, home ownership, health care and affordable education and begin voting for the party these two represent again.

“This idea must have come from the special committee set up to work out how to get young people to vote Tory,” a young person told LCD Views, “presumably they decided that as a tiny minority of us went to Eton we must all be incredibly thick.”

Are you young, didn’t go to school with silver spoon kids and are convinced?

At least they may have to follow through with the Ivory trade ban now. Which is great.

Now, just settle back and wait for them to frack the f*ck out of your backyard.