Get a pizza the action! One company that won a contract to supply PPE has none at all to sell, although it does a tasty line in fast food.
The spectre of the much unlamented Chris Grayling still hangs over the government’s procurement system. It seems that government business is still being allocated on a purely random basis, topped with cheese, and half-baked for ten minutes at gas mark 8.
In fact, the nearest thing to PPE that this unfortunate company has is a pair of oven gloves and a pinny.
In better news though, the pizzas it delivers are some of the best around. “We only use the finest ingredients,” boasted managing director Mac Aroni. “Italian flour, Italian mozzerella, Italian tomatoes. Fuck knows how we will source them after the UK stops trading with Italy next year.”
Is the PPE supply business a sideline, a way of diversifying?
“No, my email was a practical joke,” admitted Aroni. “My good friend Fay Smask practically spammed the government with offers to supply PPE, but never got an answer. So I did too, for shits and giggles. Now I have this enormous contract and no equipment. Thick crust or thin and crispy?”
So long as it’s oven ready I’m not bothered.
Can’t you come to an agreement with Smask to supply the necessary?
“No, trouble is she got an order from the EU,” grumbled Aroni. “They bought everything she had in stock and everything she could source.”
Any idea why they wouldn’t buy from her?
“Don’t know,” admitted Aroni. “But the thing is, they always do due diligence, and although her company is rock solid, her Twitter account has an EU flag next to her name. Whereas mine has a union jack.”
PPE might, one day, be delivered. Possibly. On an Uber ferry, no doubt.
DO AS I SAY : DOWNING STREET AREN’T WALLOWING IN THE DOLDRUMS of adverse press coverage (by traitors), they’re on the front foot and looking to fight back.
“We’re ramping up,” Matt Hancock, the self-inflating balloon of UK politics, declared today, “we are determined, now more than ever, to identify the Tory MP rumoured to have observed the lockdown regulations.”
The reason for the increased focus on the effort to test, track and trace the mythical MP is believed to be the press coverage of Bob Seely MP, who broke lockdown to BBQ with some of Britain’s finest potatriots.
“When we find the MP, and he, or she, must exist, we will be isolating them. We will make an example of them. They will be the doing the 5pm daily CV-19 press conferences, whether they’re dripping in the sweat of possible Covid-19 nor not. They’ll be declaring what a great job YOU, THE BRITISH PEOPLE, have done swallowing the BS of us YOUR BETTERS. They’ll carry on until they’re blue in the face.”
We here at LCD Views would like to wish the government success in its latest endeavour. It can’t be easy achieving total compliance from the public after “Cummings’ Law” entered the common law.
But like the Loch Ness Monster, Sasquatch, Edwardian Garden Faeries and Unicorns, the one Tory MP who put the public first and didn’t make an entire sham of a nation’s efforts must exist. And when cornered they must be isolated, presumably to be laughed at by their colleagues in private.
In other news, the new CV-19 slogan has been modified to “STAY ALERT – A BBQ INVITATION MAY COME AT ANY TIME. EVEN DURING LOCKDOWN.”
It’s a national emergency! We need strawberries to accompany Wimbledon fortnight, as the BBC gears up to show the complete tournament from the year Andy Murray won.
There has been an appeal for fruit pickers, now that the unskilled seasonal workers from the EU have been told to fuck off for good.
This is, of course, one of the wonderful consequences of Brexit. No more free movement, and a hostile environment. There are plenty of UK nationals desperate for work. You voted for this, as the dedicated website proclaims.
Or rather, did proclaim. It crashed, since once again the government failed to anticipate the demand. A cynic might say that the website was a last minute afterthought designed to be a shop window and no more.
In fact, the ONS disclosed that a total of 17.4 million people tried to log on. This, as the government will tell you, is the entire population of the UK.
Don’t use public transport! In fact, since rural bus routes were sacrificed on the altar of profit years ago, you couldn’t catch the bus in any case. Once again, the government is advising unemployed Brits to get on their bike.
The website has been somewhat resurrected. People have been directed to farms only 300 miles from where they live. This should not be a problem, since it is now perfectly acceptable to drive a distance equivalent to that from London to Barnard Castle.
Users lucky enough to access the website discover not only the fact that their job will be at the other end of the country, but also the FAQ section. If you click on the question “How much will I be paid?” readers find themselves directed to another page. This reads, “Take it or leave it. Incidentally, any Universal Credit, pension or furlough pay you currently receive has been discontinued.”
Oddly enough, this appears to be the only part of the website that actually works properly.
Pick for Britain! Long days, hard work, low pay, poor conditions. Do your duty!
TPA DANCING IN THE STREETS : Downing Street has moved to get alongside the furore over Jacob Rees-mogg’s celebrated reforms to voting procedure in the House of Commons.
“From today any constituency whose MP has been disenfranchised by Jacob’s Corn Laws will no longer pay tax,” a Treasury spokesman announced.
“And additionally, we will backdate refunds of all PAYE and VAT already taken to return money to voters which has arguably been taken unjustifiably since MPs, who could vote, took part in the complete farce our supposed democracy has become under the Brexiters.”
It’s not clear if the money will be wired directly into constituents’ accounts or a cheque will be put in the post.
“Mr Johnson’s personal preference is for the cheque to be in the post,” the spokesman added, “but he’ll have to clear it with Dom first.”
It must be said however, that the equanimity with which the voting changes have been received by MPs as a collective, wherein masses of colleagues have been denied their right to actively represent their constituencies in the most fundamental manner required of a functioning democracy, shows that Brexit is functioning exactly as designed.
No memorials for U.K. democracy are yet planned, because the lobotomisation of parliament is still ongoing.
The constituencies which have been stripped of democratic representation are likely to see a rash of new voter registrations too. Backdated to last week.
“People should note though that the payments will be a few weeks away,” the spokesman added, “as we need to allow time for Tory MPs to register in the afflicted boroughs, in order to receive the refunds. And for the ideal company to be found to be gifted the massive private contract which will be needed to ensure a successful scheme is in place.”
LEARNING FROM OTHERS IS HERD : DOWNING STREET must have an eye on a general election after Covid-19 is beaten back by Blitz spirit and British pluck.
Early this morning the office of whoever is prime minister dove into the media surf with the aim of swimming right over the foam of criticism crashing against the laboured rocks of public health.
“For too long we have been unable to control our borders,” a Boris Johnson impersonator declared, “this has meant we simply could not stop people walking right into the United Kingdom carrying Covid-19. And then, like an invisible mugger, Dominic Cummings stole the message of public health right out of our pockets. And not only that, many caught a bad flu as a result.”
But a new initiative will spare Mr Cumming’s blushes in future.
“Island Britain will see the entire country transformed into an island!”
The plan seems to involve spending £350m per week to cut off the land bridges that have joined the UK to continental Europe since prehistory.
“In this way we will finally be an independent sovereign, island nation who can quarantine arrivals to our shores. It will not matter if they sneak past Nigel Farage on the beaches of Kent or land in one of the notoriously low security welcome cottages called airports.”
But critics have been quick to ask why the award to supply the earth movers and diggers for the project has been gifted to a prominent Tory donor without contest? By way of using an obscure statutory instrument introduced in 2015?
“This is Brexit Britain. We do things differently here. Outcomes are unimportant.”
SHORT TERM MEMORY : THE UK’S PUPPET PRIME MINISTER, BORIS JOHNSON, has announced today a bold new plan to ramp up inward migration from EU states to the UK.It appears the UK has a lot of capacity, but not a lot to fill it.
“I am going on tour!” Mr Johnson told the country via Zoom, “a. A. A. A charm offensive if you will! The Royal Brexitannia will sail from Dover and make land at the ancient English port of Calais,” a potentially shit faced Mr Johnson spluttered.
“Calais! A fitting place to land, for it was Churchill himself who gave the port to the Franks as a token of appreciation for the cheese wheel the good, earnest, Anglophile people of the Rhone valley gave to him.”
Here Mr Johnson paused to adjust his fly, ruffle his hair and remain pleasingly ignorant of the plum sauce stain on his tie.
“And when I say make land, I do not mean in the manner of the Ancient Greek hero, Landmasia, faced with the land eating monster Tidalmania, I mean in the manner of disembarking from a ship of the line! So I go not as an invader! I go to offer one hand in friendship, while I keep one with my fingers crossed firmly behind my perfidious back.”
The move is certainly a bold one and definitely offensive.
But is IT not a recognition of the pig headed stupidity of utilising US and UK dark money to fuel a right wing populist campaign of ethno-nationalism, war fetishization and ghastly xenophobia over years, just to get Mr Johnson into the premiership, and make feudally minded disaster capitalists a lot of money, at the expense of the entire country?
“I am not like the proverbial car chasing dog who finally catches the car,” Mr Johnson added, not even convincing himself anymore.
“I will make Britain great again! I should know how! I’ve done so very much to break it. If British people will not harvest British crops and wipe British bottoms, perhaps some eager foreign chaps maybe lured back to do it? And then Priti Patel can have the joy of throwing them all out again!”
From Covid Island with love – Boris Johnson is cummings. We suggest you place in quarantine. There is no need at all to attempt a timely return.
A TISSUE A TISSUE : THE MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT FOR THE 14TH CENTURY, JACOB REES-MOGG, has responded to criticism of the new voting system he’s introduced into the House of Commons.
From today MPs queuing up to catch Covid-19 from each other will be able to take fun fair rides.
“The Ghost Train is a traditional feature of British fairgrounds,” an aide who works in the crypts told LCD Views, “Jacob had a vision yesterday, as he was lying in his coffin awaiting the night, and the vision was fun.”
The Ghost Train will snake its way from the start of the long queue, all the way to the House of Commons chamber, with MPs spilling off the caboose and into the division lobbies.
A traditional song, The Dance of Death, will play as the train rumbles toward its terminal point. Although there have been a few murmurings of disquiet, as the recording artist chosen is not British. But then you can reasonably be queried over policies which may inadvertently, indirectly kill some of the people some of the time, but you can’t please them all.
And it’s not just the method of shuffling off the mortal coil that is changing in Westminster, the division lobbies are getting a much needed makeover too.
“MPs won’t go into the yes or no division anymore, but into the positive or negative, this will help Matt Hancock as he ramps up his CV-19 testing stats. If we’re testing people, they can’t be dying. That’s some clever thinking right there.”
But there has been one other area of criticism.
“Some of the usual types, who are never happy anyway, have suggested the train should terminate at Barnard Castle, the spiritual home of Tory Covid-19, but that would just keep Dominic Cummings undermining the rule of law in the headlines. We wouldn’t want that.”
Get your ticket today, just be sure to self isolate, at home, for fourteen days each time you ride the train. You never know what the person next to you maybe carrying on any given day. Well you would if we had an efficient, publicly run, infectious disease control strategy, but this is Tory run UK.
FAMINE WILL DO AS FAMINE PLEASES : Prime Minister Dominic Johnson has used that august platform, The Daily Torygraph, to communicate his latest strategy to defeat Covid-19.
“We’re going to outwit the virus by befriending the virus,” he said, in another stunning display of out of the box thinking, “invite it into each and every home. Once it is comfortable, with its slippers on, then we will launch our attack!”
It seems a key plank in this masterplan is to take direct control of the busiest horsemen.
“To this end we will now take direct control of plague, disease, man flu or whatever you want to call it,” Prime Minister Boris Cummings continued, “we will take control back by losing control. We will award every contract to control, track, trace, isolate, quarantinate, and generally carpetbagate from Covid-19 to a raft of big name corporate chums. Not to those ridiculously unprofitable public health concerns that have specialities in tracing infectious diseases in their communities. One can hardly ride a horse if one blinkers it, blinds it and hobbles it! Cash. Horses run on mountains of cash.”
Quite what famine and war, and whatever the other horsemen is called, will do whilst Plague is getting the special treatment isn’t yet clear.
But we’re sure some media trained halfwit, promoted to the cabinet solely on the basis of an ability to be submissive and smash their moral compass, will be along soon to tell us in soundbites how they’re taking it.
Boris Dominic Johnson Cummings, taking control of fuck all, and by doing so riding a famous horse very well, thank you very much. Now line up and vote. Just turn your back if the MP next to you sneezes. It’ll be alright. Bit of pluck and Blitz spirit and Covid-19 will do exactly as the government wants it to. Achoooooo.
IT DOESN’T RAIN BUT IT POURS : Since the new voting system for MPs was revealed yesterday many have raised concerns over how MPs will keep dry when the plague sunshine ends.
But fear not, the government has thought about it and taken steps to protect those fine suits and dresses.
“We have it on good authority, completely invented for the purpose of this article (the purpose of which is to ask about the expenditure of public money – seems to be a lot of that going around?) that a company linked to Dominic Cummings has been awarded a plush contract to supply umbrellas.”
The company is believed to have been set up overnight by the second cousin of someone who once wrote a positive review of Mr Cummings’ blog. However, actual ownership of the company appears to be in the hands of a US billionaire. Which will come as a shock to everybody.
“We can spare no expense to protect MPs as they stand around for hours like lambs being led to the slaughter of representative democracy.”
The contract, which was awarded without tender, will see £350m per week paid for the supply of umbrellas. The umbrellas are believed to have been liberated from a poundstore supply chain which has been unable to distribute to shops during lockdown.
The reason for the high cost appears to be the modification of the umbrellas, before distribution, to include a digital chip which monitors MPs heart, breathing rates and records their private thoughts.
“Umbrellas are useful in blazing sun too,” our source continues, “so it’s a bargain whatever the weather. And with our commitment to continue with global warming, well, there’s going to be a lot of hot summers. At least until water levels rise sufficiently to flood over the Thames barrier.”
But there’s no free lunch. MPs will have to pay a minimum of £100 per umbrella, which they will be able to claim back on expenses, so no one is left out of pocket. Most umbrellas are expected to be single use, unlike the taxpayer.
“It doesn’t rain, but it pours,” the source added, “pours public cash into private pockets. Got to love a good disaster [capitalist].”
But just in case anyone is worried that someone is taking the piss, each umbrella will come with a free eye test!
“The eye tests are in the form of a get out of jail free card. Those are valid for travel to any destination within the UK, by road, during the anticipated second lockdown this summer.”
WE’RE AN ISLAND PEOPLE AND WE DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY HERE : LOCAL DEMOCRACY FOR LOCAL PEOPLE took a great leap forward yesterday after the successful trial run of a new voting system for UK MPs.
“It is rumoured that the new voting system, whereby MPs shuffle about like chumps for hours, was cooked up by Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson as a power play over parliament,” our Downing Street interpreter interprets, “is parliament sovereign? Not if we can make absolute tits of the lot of them. How about we throw 21st century technology in the skip, in the middle of a pandemic, and co-opt MPs into a scheme to actively disenfranchise hundreds of their colleagues?”
Quite the wheeze.
And a complete success.
“The new system is not designed to be permanent,” our interpreter continues, “it was more like an initiation ritual at a private school, wherein the new kids are made to embarrass themselves completely in front of everyone. It’s to show who has power, and who has not.”
Jacob Rees-mogg, the supposed architect of the long queue voting system, found himself laughed at as the public and press witnessed the charade play out.
“Who’s the bigger fool? The boy who insists you put a hot crumpet between your buttocks, or the one who puts a hot crumpet between their buttocks?”
A good question.
“If you want to delegitimise parliament in the eyes of the people, as you continue your slow grind to turn a representative parliamentary democracy into an elected dictatorship, you can’t do a lot better than to order MPs to humiliate themselves in public.”
And even as they participated in the ritual, numerous MPs tweeted how stupid it was, while being stupid enough to go along with it.
Although it wasn’t all bad. The smallest man currently in the House of Commons, in all senses, got to show just how small he was. Which was some small consolation. Have a smirk.
“Mogg survived having a nap on the green benches last year,” our correspondent continues, “he’s survived blaming Grenfell victims for their deaths. He’ll survive being laughed at over the new voting system. This is because he’s really laughing at you. All of you.”
The only thing that remains now is whether or not the UK’s politicians, people who are supposed to understand politics, will realise how completely, symbolically, publicly and easily they’ve all been played? How they actively participated in robbing hundreds of constituencies of representation.
“Bad things happen when good people do nothing,” our correspondent adds, “and yesterday good people did a bad thing. So really, we’re even further around the S bend then we thought. But what do you expect when a country’s elected representatives allow the entire nation to be reorientated based on the result of a criminally corrupted opinion poll, now years old. Funny kinda democracy you’ve got there.”
Now we just wait to see how many MPs test positive for CV-19. Maybe the executive will be forced, with a heavy heart, to send them all home, permanently. For their own safety, you understand.
“I for one would like our elected representatives to be a bit more clued up to how they’re being played. And to remember the power they possess, before they’re robbed of it. In broad daylight. With their own active participation. And the next time Cummings decides to hold you all in contempt, maybe don’t go along with it?”
And now, to end, here’s a link to a video of a government minister who does his job well, with intelligence and public interest foremost. Spoiler alert, he’s not elected to the mother of parliaments, but he is refreshing to view. An example of where we should look to get back to.
