Category: Governing the people

Oysters living in beds on the briny beach have abandoned efforts to halt their being taken for a “walk up the beach” by the Walrus and the Carpenter following “significant” concessions made by the Carpenter.

“We have received the personal assurances from the Carpenter that she will agree to the broad thrust of our proposals for a “meaningful vote” on both the planned walk up the beach, and also on the potential use of pepper and vinegar,” said a spokesman for the rebel oysters, Gromonic Dieve.

Confirming that talks on ancillary agreements concerning the issue of “seas and ships and sealing wax” had been successfully concluded, he added that a deal over “cabbages and kings” was imminent but that some differences still remained concerning “why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wings”,  which he was sure could be ironed out without unnecessary unpleasantness.

Commenting briefly on the agreement, the Carpenter said only that it was “A matter of trust”, but declined to rule out the possible future introduction of bread and butter into the proceedings.

However, despite the assurances offered by the Carpenter, the Walrus appeared to rule out backing the oyster’s consultation plan.

“Oyster walking is a constitutional issue. You cannot have crustaceans dictating policy to mammals,” he said sternly.

“We held a referendum between the two of us which returned a clear unanimous majority in favour of continuing the walk on our own terms. We cannot, and indeed should not allow our principles to be overturned; ” he added.

Having expressed their contentment with the Carpenter’s assurances Dieve confirmed that he and his fellow rebel oysters had, as agreed,  brushed their coats, washed their faces and donned neat, clean shoes, but requested a degree of leeway over the speed of peregrination due to corpulence factors beyond their control.

“Some of us are out of breath, and all of us are fat,” he pointed out, thanking the Carpenter for her consideration in allowing them more time to “hop through the frothy waves” and “scramble to the shore” before setting off at a “gentle trot”.

Efforts by reporters to contact the oysters following their walk, to confirm compliance by the Walrus and Carpenter with the pre-agreed conditions, were  unfortunately unsuccessful.

Speaking to LCD views, the Walrus confirmed that all the oysters had indeed enjoyed a pleasant run but had unanimously declined to return to their bed.

“We did offer them to chance to trot off home again but none responded to our offer,” he said licking a stray blob of butter from his tusk.

A woman is to spend the next few days working out whether or not she can get away with breaking promises made to her lawyer.

”It’s a bit sticky, isn’t it?” the toilet roll holder in her office told us, “I’m spinning around and around in anticipation.”

In anticipation of spending a lot of time with one person in particular, hiding in here with you?

”Yes. I’m screwed to the wall in the 10 Downing Street WC. This means in times of crisis people tend to hide out inside with me, sometimes for hours or days at a time.”

But why would the woman even consider breaking promises to her lawyer?

”Because it’s either break them to him or break them to a bunch of swivel eyed idiots who have no genuine understanding of how international trade works, or the life and death nature of the Irish Border problem and who seem willing to watch the U.K. descend into anarchy for their feverish, ideological nightmare to become reality.”

Well, it’s either the lawyer or she breaks her promises, made in clammy palmed moments, to the swivel eyed idiots? Oh, and some creationists.

”That’s where you’re wrong. She needs to break her promises to everyone while seeming to break them to none.”

Ah. Fudgberg.

”It’s pretty much the entire governing policy of the United Kingdom now. That and ruining the lives of poor and vulnerable people.”

This doesn’t sound like a very sensible way to manage a country.

”You only say that because you don’t understand how vitally important it is that the woman stays prime minister. And furthermore how important it is that her party stays in power. That’s really all that matters to her and her party. Even if she’s just the fall guy.”

But surely the future of the country is more important? Not lying is important?

”If all that was so important there’s a man who would be fighting Brexit tooth and nail, who isn’t, who’s actually helping it.”

Now I’m confused. Dominic Grieve is fighting Brexit tooth and nail, he’s backing and backing May into the corner she’s painted for herself.

”Not that man. The other one. The one holding a party on the weekend to celebrate how great he is at a time of national crisis.”

Are we completely screwed?

”No. Reality is on our side. And time still. Remember, whatever parliament does it can undo.”

So long as it doesn’t drive us over a cliff.

”True. But just sit tight and keep at it. She’s going to have to break a promise to someone next few days and when she does the proverbial is going to hit the fan.”

The woman who, somehow, is still the Prime Minister has accidentally disclosed Number Ten’s hiring protocol. The PM is only allowed to fire ministers who are less competent than she is herself.

The reasons are obvious. An incompetent underling should be removed, on the grounds that you could do a better job yourself. But if the reverse were the case, the subordinate has grounds to argue his or her case, and win. It’s democracy in action.

Case in point: David Davis. This is a man promoted well beyond his abilities, yet remaining in post. A man with little apparent grasp of the fundamentals of his job, and lacking the work ethic to amend this. Still when clashing with May about the NI backstop issue, his threat to resign must have made May back down. A stronger leader might have called his bluff, or imposed her will.

The only Will that May seems to exert is the much-abused Will of the People, that tenuous and quite probably illegitimate justification for her government’s ruinous policy.

This explains why Jeremy C. Hunt was promoted, not sacked. It explains why Liam Fox continues to rack up the air miles. It explains why Boris Johnson still has a job, however hard he tries to get fired.

Amber Rudd went because she was not competent enough to sort out the mess May, her predecessor, left for her. Damian Green had to go because pornography is one of the few remaining taboos for government ministers. Ignore the fact that if Green had been caught having sex, not merely watching it, everything would have been fine and dandy.

In fact it seems that the government is an arch in inverse, with the keystone at the bottom. If May cracks, the whole show will collapse about her ears. May surely knows this, she is not stupid. So who is holding her in place? The unelected, unaccountable plutocrats who are gagging for the hardest possible Brexit, which will give them a big pay day and allow them to continue to dodge their tax liabilities?

May is incapable of standing up to the bullies in and behind her cabinet, and unable to stand up for the principles she believes in.

Doubtless this was why she was permitted to become PM.

Few would dare say it out loud, but at the age of 92 the fact remains that our dearly beloved Queen Elizabeth II is cruising gently to the end of both her reign and indeed her time with us here on earth.

It is a measure of the wisdom and maturity with which she continues to fulfil her role as the mother of the nation that she has not held back from planning for what will be required following her inevitable, but no less mourned, demise, and has made known her wishes for her final resting place.

But while news that the government and the BBC have long been planning for the inevitable passing of our royal head of state and have even designated a special code word “London Bridge is down” for alerting the necessary organs of state her demise, “Her Madge’s” own plans have remained strictly come dancing.

Sorry, strictly under wraps.

Indeed, it has come as some surprise to learn that Madge has chosen to break with long standing traditions that from 1485 to 1820 accorded reigning monarchs a state funeral and burial in Westminster Abbey, and from 1820 onwards a national day of mourning for a state funeral in St George’s chapel, Windsor.

Instead she has let it be known to a select few privy councillors, flunkies, and retainers that she wishes to return to the earlier tradition established by the last Plantagenet monarch Richard III of being buried under a car park.

Richard’s choice was controversial even at the time of his demise in 1485.

Not least because it would be more than 400 years before the first cars were invented and only some years later that their numbers would increase to the point where they would require what were quickly, but erroneously, described as “automotive recreational areas”, or “car parks” for short.

A misnomer, that both traditionalists and visitors to NHS hospitals have long held does accurately describe the false impression that the vehicles so parked have taken root and will never be moved, but fails to acknowledge the obvious flaw in the argument, namely that the only fruit they ever appear to bear is in the form of parking tickets.

The question of which car park in particular her majesty wishes to be interred under is to date a closely guarded secret known only to the Royal Household, the prime minister Mrs May, and her predecessor Mr Cameron, and Ms Jo Cooper the CEO of National Car Parks (NCP).

Similarly under wraps is the nature of the vehicle which will be parked in the royal slot by way of a memorial.

The Gold State Coach (with newly installed integral shower facilities) has already been pre-booked for future visits by the supreme leader, His Excellency, president for life, Donald Trump while the family of big black rollers will be required by Liz’ own family, for her funeral procession through central London.

Which leaves only her own personal Land Rover Defender, the car in which she famously drove the late Saudi Arabian Monarch King Abdullah at high speed around the royal Balmoral estate, demonstrating the skills she learned as a military truck driver for the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service of the British Army during the second world war.
And, by all accounts, scaring the living bejeezus out of him in the process.

A fitting epitaph for any monarch, and one any car park would be proud to host.

Great news today for lovers of novelty tourism with the announcement that chumpy chum of the chum chum chumocracy, Boris ‘the chump’ Johnson (we mean it in the slang American sense) is to begin giving guided tours of a burning nuclear reactor.

“I want everyone to be reassured that no matter how badly the tour goes, Mr Dick will be perfectly safe. He is protected from all fallout by virtue of privilege and wealth,” tour booking agent, Lord Michael Howard, told us this morning, “and I am too. It’s sensible, early in life, to be sure you’re in the chumocracy. Birth is the best time to start.”

That’s reassuring to know. We wouldn’t want Mister Boris Cock’s trademark blonde mop to get singed as he shoves blinking peasantry through the nuclear flames.

But what price the tour?

“Millions of jobs,” Mr How-HOW?! replied, “it’s perfectly normal during times of deliberately created economic instability to sacrifice the livelihoods of millions of ordinary working people who were too stupid to choose the right accident of birth. Or who didn’t by hook or by crook manage to rectify that mistake during their formative years.”

When do the tours start?

“Oh, they’ve already begun. They are all day, every day and will continue until such time as a proper British Godzilla is born in the seas currently being polluted by radioactive waters, or the entire economy of the United Kingdom is successfully destroyed in order to make a few offshore tax exiles even wealthier.”

Excellent! What happens next, if the British Godzilla doesn’t arrive?

“Full blown fascism and a few years down the road World War Three, most likely, as the results of the project steamroll out of control and the rise of nationalism in Europe leads to conflict again. A lot of people stand to make an awful lot of money. It’s delightful.”

And what will Theresa May do now? Faced with the announcement of the guided tours?

“What she always does. Stand stock still, too terrified to move.”

And what about alternative tour leader Jeremy ‘the boy’ Corbyn? Some believe he could stand in the way of the tours if he choose?

Mr How-how-HOW? Why are you laughing?

“I wasn’t laughing. I was choking back my laughter. There’s a difference. He’s holding a party in the park while the entire fucking country descends into anarchy. Which is just what we want him to do. It’s funny where you find your allies in times of change.”

The people have the power.

“Excuse me?”

Nevermind. You can piss off back to your insulated privilege and blithely talk about the destruction of millions of people’s livelihoods as a price worth paying for some undefined goal somewhere distant.

“I might just do that. Take the tour and when you do, breathe in deep. The deeper you breathe, the richer we get.”

Sajid Javid found himself under fire today for something other than having to untangle his predecessors inhuman immigration policies after the release of a HO Doomsday Brexit Britain survival guide.

”Everyone is unfairly criticising the standard of graphic design on our new A4 size poster guides,” an unpaid intern told LCD Views, as we took them on a tour of our Human Resources department to show them what personnel files of people who get paid millions look like.

”We all worked really hard this morning to come up with the poster after Mr Javid said Ms May had sent a Mr Parkinson over to DExEU to threaten Mr Davis for lack of planning when Mr Davis has been urging Ms May to stock up on tins of baked beans for a week now.”

But how did the Home Office come into it?

”That was the Home Secretary’s bright idea after he saw on his WhatsApp group for post Brexit customs planning, all ministers are in one of two, that there was rising tension between Downing Street and DExEU over it.”

So he took the initiative to assist his colleagues?

”I think he was grandstanding personally, but as all other ministers are currently taking a nap and hoping all their troubles will be gone when they wake for lunch, someone had to act to reassure the public.”

I didn’t realise the official opposition front bench and leader were cabinet ministers too?

”Sorry?”

Everyone is asleep.

”Well, quite.”

So what is wrong with the posters?

”Apparently it looks like someone just smashed it together in a couple of minutes on a smart phone app.”

We can’t see anything wrong with that!

”Well, just so. But apparently the public expect a higher standard of design if you’re going to tell them to eat their cats to help make a success of Brexit.”

The Department for Work and Penury was proclaiming its latest success today after it announced that unemployment for clowns is at an all time record low.

”It helps that we’ve changed the way we measure clowning,” Mr R Eaper told LCD Views during a tour of a new workhouse, “now you just have to be appointed to the cabinet.”

So tell us about this new build?

”Once this factory is completed Global Britain will completely eradicate unemployment and the unemployed. We’re always looking backward for the solutions of today. Especially philosophically.”

Late 18th or early 19th century?

”Oh both. And 14th if you consider our deep, frothing at the mouth need to remove FOM from the poor classes. It’s nice our colleague’s running Labour are also committed to that gross reduction of rights for everyday people.”

Why is it that freedom of movement is so bad?

”The British people voted to make racism policy on the 23rd June 2016. We’re just delivering on what was ordered in the completely democratic opinion poll. It’s a good thing Jezza Corbistan is also signed up to that dogwhistle. Makes it a damn sight easier to sell.”

Okay. Next question. Will any clowns be visiting this shiny new workhouse?

”We’ll mostly be confining welfare debtors and their children here to make matches in the old fashioned labour intensive way. Keep those criminal hands busy at constructive work.”

Yes, but will clowns end up here?

”I guess one will turn up for opening day. Cut the ribbon. But mostly I expect them all to be busy for the timebeing employing their excessive personal wealth to ensure after Brexit they maintain individually their freedom of movement. Now, let’s have a look inside the big tent?”

LCD Views can reveal this morning that the results of snap polling over the weekend reveals support for Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP at all time high in England.

“It’s the result we were expecting, to be honest,” poll master Professor Pole told us, “the cuddly face of nationalism has been seeing its light shine brighter over the last couple of years, but no one can work out why? It’s all very baffling. Presumably there’s an underlying political cause? What do you think? It couldn’t be the endless shitshower of useless English MPs in Westminster, aided and abetted, occasionally, by the DUP?”

Quite why the SNP has seen a surge in support within England maybe a mystery, but that wasn’t stopping us hitting the pavement only in London to find out why.

”Have you smelt Westminster?” Jo Blogs (all the time, across social media) asked us as by way of answering, “it’s a dumpster full of rotting fish and someone has filled it with petrol and someone else has set it on fire,

“This is why I am voting SNP at the snap general election soon after parliament votes to stay in the customs union riding a unicorn and put it to the people,

“Even if the SNP can’t logically stand a candidate in my constituency. I’m just plain jealous that the Scots might have a chance to escape endless Tory rule. It’s not an option we appear to have in England with old three dimensional foot shooter Corbyn running Labour.”

But surely the SNP are just taking advantage of the political chaos and confusion gripping England to further their own highly emotive agenda?

”That’s politics.”

It doesn’t make it right. They should be working with Theresa May to get her Brexit deal over the line.

”Like the burn it all DUP? Are you paying attention? Even the Brexiters voted against the deal, twice!”

Yes. Taking advantage of the chinks in the armour of the Conservative government, what’s that all about SNP?

”That’s what opposition parties are there to do! Expose the weaknesses and smash them. That’s how an adversarial political system functions. Brexit is a gift to nationalists. I’ve never had any truck with Scottish Independence before, but now? Get out while you can! Save yourselves! Wales too! Go on Northern Ireland, you know you want to! Cornwall! Raise the flag!”

We just need to give Labour/Abstention more time. They’ve totally out foxed the Tories.

”The Tories have outfoxed the Tories. Labour are just greasing the wheels of Brexit expecting the Tories to get all the blame, as if people don’t understand the role of the official opposition. That’s why I’m voting for Scottish Independence, even though I can’t. I dislike nationalism in any form as a rule, but right now I dislike English nationalism a lot more.”

FUKUS, or the Future UK – US Free Trade Agreement for short, in is doubt today after a five minute study of both countries domestic output revealed the pair of international clowns have a surplus of whataboutery.

“And it’s growing,” our trade specialist says, “it’s a mountain of whataboutery and it needs shifting or we won’t be able to agree to trade anything.”

But what about that little hill over there of electoral corruption cheese? I think it needs measuring again. It could actually be a mountain also.

It’s where a lot of the whataboutery is grown. Probably not a coincidence that the Trump and Brexit camps are using a soviet era, and modern day Russian government, tactic to deflect criticism and turn away inquiry?

“What about the British automotive sector going to the wall if you don’t get Brexit right, busy poking your nose into other people’s private affairs?” our trade guru immediately demanded, “what about thinking about the lives and pay packets of someone other than yourself for a change?”

But I thought you were concerned about the whataboutery too?

“What about worrying about the problem of lack of democratic accountability in your own house. I hear several of the residents are frequently denied agency in the most basic of decisions?”

They’re children.

“What about standing up for the rights of children rather than berating me about some insignificant problem about perceived democratic standards in places beyond my control.”

But that’s the point of democracy, it is under our control.

“What about worrying about lack of democracy in other countries. Peoples that would love to have the flawed, but functioning system you enjoy. Although you’d never know it. What about being a little bit more grateful and let your elected leaders get on with leading.”

But what about Hilary’s emails? What about the corruption in the Remain campaign in the EUref?

“That’s more like it.”

But what about Labour’s six tests on Brexit and what a load of fudge and bollocks that is and how bad a job they’re doing at holding the government to account?

Wouldn’t the government just collapse like the sack of shit it is in the face of concerted opposition?

“What about Tony Blair? You should think long and hard about how Blairites are undermining the leader.”

Of course. It’s not about Jeremy’s actions. It’s about what someone who hasn’t been leader of the party for over a decade did. He made catastrophic errors and he has never been held to account, to our shame.

But what about Jeremy actually leading the opposition to the government on the largest change for decades, so the suspect figures of previous eras can shut up?

“What about what an emotive gift T-Bone Blair is to Momentum and how useful he is at shielding Corbyn from criticism?”

What about not being so f*cking cynical and tearing May out of office by full throttle opposition?

“What about we go back to talk about salvaging this free trade deal? This whataboutery is going off the rails.”

What about it?

It’s going to be ruinous to the United Kingdom. We’ll be so out classed by size, we’ll be economically and politically desperate and we’ll be beholden to a president across the sea who cares more about golf and tweeting while taking a dump in the morning than he does about us.

“What about how the unelected eurocrats are even now punishing the UK for following our democratic destiny by actually telling us we can’t be part of the bits of the EU we still want to be part of?”

Will this never end?

“What about the Never Ending Story? How do you think it feels to have you dragging it into a conversation it had no intention of being part of?”

What about we just stop now?

“What about you seeing through a task dozens of tax dodgers have committed years to.”

We should stop that too. On both sides of the Atlantic.

LCD Views can break great news today with a sign of intelligent life detected in the murky and very damp interior of 10 Downing Street.

“We thought it was a waste land,” explora-tory biologist Professor Fcuk told us over croissants and bumpy white coffee, “all investigations over the last couple of years have only found signs of what may once have been highly evolved organisms and a sophisticated civilisation, but they were thought to have been long extinct.”

A bit like the Martian landscape?

“Similar, but less enjoyable.”

So what’s changed?

“A repeating signal has been detected from deep inside what appears to be an ancient network of plumbing used to worship scat by whoever constructed the structure, and we’ve been able to interpret it.”

While it’s too early to tell yet if the origin of the source possesses a complex central nervous system, Professor Fcuk is tentatively hopeful.

“Fcuk, even finding something as complex as bacterial slime would be encouraging,” the professor said, “give it a few billion years and it may evolve thumbs. It would be very exciting to watch. Although it needs to get a hurry on. the Sun is expected to supernova around then. So by the time it re-evolves it maybe too late.”

But how would you expect to observe this evolution of the bacterial slime into a complex organism, as highly evolved as one that has and uses thumb? The human life span is too short.

“I’m going to upload my consciousness into the cloud. There’s not any other realistic choice because that’s how long Theresa May and the terrified lunatics surrounding her will need their desperate Customs Regulatory Alignment Period to last to have a snowflake’s chance in hell of developing any realistic, feasible and cost efficient alternatives to the babies they’re so hurriedly throwing out with the EU bathwater.”

Those babies have thumbs.

“Indeed. Seamless and frictionless ones.”