Another Baby-Step Too Far

Shrieks of patriotic indignation are doubtless in store over His Majesty's Government's plans to reform the Feudal System. True, the reforms are intended to benefit genuine working people, namely home-owners as opposed to the rent-paying Lumpenarbeiter; and they are also sufficiently moderate and sensible to have originated with the jabbering homunculus Michael Gove; yet there exists a very palpable risk that certain members of the propertied classes may one day be required to provide services even after taking payment for them, in defiance of all humane and British values. Then again, Team Starmer's less than Herculean attempt at polishing a few gobbets of the Augean ordure at the House of Placepersons, Parasites and Porkers is already stalled, apparently on the grounds that the Conservative Party wouldn't like it; so there seems every chance that the Feudal System will emerge from the current Parliament with little more than a few changes in departmental nomenclature.

Baghdad on the Azov

In keeping with the mainland's ambition to bestride the Atlantic as a bridge between helping Ukraine and not helping Ukraine, the CEO of Team Starmer has pledged to work towards a settlement that will satisfy the United States, even if it involves the appearance of collaborating with the beastly French. A clue to Britain's likely role may perhaps be found in the great man's use of the term "coalition of the willing" - the sobriquet of those plucky little powers who joined the Bush chimpanzee in freedomising the Middle East from the scourge of Islamic fundamentalist violence. The beastly French opted to sit out that particular crusade, while the heirs of Mr Churchill waded in with gusto under the spiritual guidance of Team Starmer's patron saint, the blessings of whose success are on all our heads to this day. It remains to be seen whether the Reverend Blair's godson-in-truth will be able to induce the wavering Euro-wogs towards making a similar triumph of Ukraine.

Coming Soon

Righteous Among the Heathen

It is vital to remember, lest we fall into the pernicious error of racial stereotyping, that certain Arab breeds are a moral cut above the Palestinian Untermenschen. A case in point is provided by His Majesty's Government's favourite Islamic fundamentalists, among whom British values are once more splendidly rampant. Border forces beholden to the head-chopping House of Saud are taking a bracing no-nonsense approach to Ethiopian migrants, who are very selfishly and underhandedly taking illegal advantage of the fallout from the legal, moderate and sensible Saudi rampage in Yemen. Popular deterrents include beatings, rape, indiscriminate machine-gun fire and bodies left to rot; although, as with the gangs small-boating economic migrants across the Anglo-American Channel, it remains unclear how effective such measures are against the innate good taste and compassion of the traffickers. Fortunately the illegal Ethiopians tend to be from areas affected by civil conflict, poverty and the climate crisis, and therefore unworthy of British aid; so His Majesty's Government's military and diplomatic ties with the head-chopping House of Saud are unlikely to suffer any significant reduction in profitability.

Unhealthy Associations

In yet another regrettable instance of unelected officialdom's indifference to hard choices and economic growth, a Surrey coroner has expressed concern over the use of unqualified and inexperienced personnel in the NHS even though such personnel tend to come cheaper. "Physician associates", whom the Government intends as a sustainable substitute for doctors until AI can take over medicating the expendables, receive limited training and are expected to get by on clean British pluck and gumption as opposed to all that nasty non-profitable expertise. In this case a woman was misdiagnosed with a nosebleed and subsequently died of complications from a hernia; her relatives accepted the misdiagnosis because they were under the impression that it originated with someone merely qualified to diagnose. However, since importing experienced immigrants is a self-evident moral impossibility and inadequate training costs less than the other sort, a degree of attrition among the social class whose lifestyle choices don't include private healthcare is clearly a price worth paying.

Weighting the Barbarians

They're savage, with strange deities,
And merit death from our disease;
So those our own God cannot save,
We humbly slaughter and enslave.

They're simple, noble, frank and free
Of civilised hypocrisy;
We've much to learn, they've lots to teach,
Provided they don't over-reach.

Though quite impressive in their time,
They've lately turned to drugs and crime.
The lower orders of our race
Should look to them, and know their place.

Their complex tribal culture stays
In harmony with Nature's ways;
Alas, their fund of social health
Adds little to our conquered wealth.

Extinction's coming for us. How
Might we best make use of them now?

Mia Kapoialysis

Media Magic

Since history, myth and literature are devoid of intrinsic interest, it is customary for reporting journalists to spice developments up a bit and so facilitate consumption. Britain's leading liberal newspaper has smoothly applied this technique to the Myrddin Poetry Project, which has spent the past three years editing and translating mediaeval Welsh poems about the figure most commonly known as Merlin. While obviously incapable of holding a journalistic attention merely upon its merits, this achievement has been expertly packaged for modern values by presenting the character as an early environmentalist; and although one cannot fault the intention, yet the interpretation seems a little behind the times. In one text Merlin expresses fear that an orchard will be cleared by woodcutters, which surely makes him less an early environmentalist than a partisan of farmer-landlords over industrialists. In another piece he warns a white sow to be alert against one of his personal enemies; which, once appropriately construed, might easily qualify Merlin as a forefather of the Farage Falange.

Hire Learning

Though occasionally a factor in teaching students to think clearly and in broadening their cultural horizons, higher education does have one or two legitimate advantages. Despite years of budgetary slashings and staff sackings, British universities still retain their snob value as producers of prestige graduates. While the little people content themselves with attending the Academy of Hard Knocks, future world leaders are purchasing courses at Oxford, Cambridge and the LSE, always provided their national treasuries can handle the tuition fees. Nevertheless, the university industry continues to fail in its primary purpose, that of assisting the country's economic growth by turning an adequate profit. Accordingly, the Minister for Human Resources Training has announced the inevitable "tough decisions" to sack more staff and slash more budget.

Spot the Red State

Communities in the South Plains region of the Christian state of Texas are celebrating the appointment of the Kennedy brainworm as health secretary with the largest measles epidemic in thirty years. Despite large numbers of citizens denying their children vaccination and trusting in God to protect them, ninety cases have been identified in the past month; although at least sixteen of those cases indulged in sufficient backsliding to permit themselves the impiety of hospitalisation. Additional cases are likely to occur according to experts, however, it must be borne in mind that their expertise is likely to be merely medical and epidemiological; so they probably failed to take into account the copious quantities of thoughts and prayers which are no doubt present in the region, and the purifying effect thereof.

Don't They Know Who's the Colonial Power Around Here?

International waters are awash with subtle and treacherous doings, as the Heathen Chinee have most provocatively and non-genocidally carried out a live-fire exercise while abiding by international law. So insidious was the naval task force's conduct that several airlines were able to change their flight plans because the junks and sampans gave, of all things, sufficient warning via a civilian radio channel. This low cunning outraged the Australian shadow defence spokesbeing, the trigger-fingerishly surnamed Andrew Hastie, who suggested that the Heathen Chinee were engaged in "gunboat diplomacy" and thereby usurping the prerogatives of the master race. For its own part, the Australian defence department claims that it was not formally notified, although by the grace of Providence some of its personnel apparently happened to be listening to the civilian channel in question at just the right time.