To the Victor the Potatoes

We are all aware, because the Parliamentary Brexit Party never tires of saying so between its libertarian bouts of migrant-bashing and Muslim-baiting, that racism has no place in the United Kingdom's politics. Her Majesty's Government will therefore be rather disappointed (or, translated from the British, bright puce and screaming with impotent rage) at the US president-elect's ancestral Irish hatred of international trade. Despite Sir Winston Boris de Pfeffel Churchill's personal victory in the war against cheap Japanese imitations of the British Empire, Biden is apparently more interested in the Middle East and the Heathen Chinee than in helping Global Britain put down the beastly Euro-wogs. Indeed, the fiendish Brusso-Strasbourgian junta has already begun a compromising correspondence in a mean-spirited effort to deny the UK its consolation prize from the Great Game. Nevertheless, all is not lost. Pragmatic and entrepreneurial as ever, Her Majesty's Government is likely to foil the conspiracy by trading beads and trinkets with Asia, which is only twice as far away as America and only slightly more foreign than Europe.

Economic Migrants

Britain's first farmers may have been beastly Euro-wogs who treacherously infiltrated the mainland over a now submerged archipelago of North Sea islands. Previously connected to Britain by a land-mass called Doggerland, the Continent was largely cut off eight thousand years ago after a catastrophic submarine landslide. A few fragments of the area remained above water, but eventually became submerged, prefiguring the likely fate of the present British Isles thanks to a degree of planning and foresight very nearly as rational and efficient as cutting throats on henges. It remains as yet unclear what repercussions the unsavoury roots of British farming may have upon the present culture war; but since the theory has been advanced by mere experts, upon a basis consisting of little more than facts, the impact on public patriotism is likely to be somewhat less than tsunamic.

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

Alas poor Countrie, where the Woo Han Peſtilence tramples all before the horrid Jawes of its cruſhing Tread, where the immortal Victory of the People's Will at Runnymede muſt count for no more than a Shred of Piffle, and where law-abiding and honeſt Citizens muſt needs permit the inalienable democratick Repreſentations of their innate Britiſhneſs to be ground into the Sands of Tyranny by the conſuming Teeth of a Parliamentary Beaſt. To ſpeak ſpeſifically, all Publick-Houſes, Eating-places, Watering-holes and the like, yea even unto the Bloater and Blueſtocking Coffee-houſe its Self, are to cloſe by ſix in the Evening, while preſent Reſtrictions will remain upon all Gatherings whether their Purpoſe be feſtive or ſubverſive. I cannot conceive, that our noble Prime Miniſter with his famous Jocularity of Spirit and Inſtinct for perſonall Liberty, hath agreed to ſuch Repreſsions upon his beloved People, and I can onlie conclude, that ſome beſtial Treachery is afoot beneath the Wainſcotting of the Corridors of the Palaces of the Mighty. Fortunately all is not loſt, for certain Theſpians have joyned to raise their Voices in the great and righteous Cauſe of Britiſhneſs, and have demonſtrated the lacking Neceſsitie for Maſques with proteſting Piſs-uppes, incendiary Rhetorick and unconducted Sneeze-ins. It is a Sight to reſtore Faith in the great realiſtick Traditions of the Engliſh Stage.

Bad Theology

Text for today: Leviticus 9 xxiv, Leviticus 10 i-xi

Two sons of Aaron, the brother of Moses, burn incense before God. Since He has not commanded them to do this, God sends out fire from before Himself and burns them both to death. He then orders Moses to sanctify Him among the élite and glorify Him before the people. Moses advises Aaron's family not to show the customary signs of mourning in case God kills them too, but permits them to bewail the burning. Later God lectures Aaron on the perils of drink and, perhaps with the golden calf in mind, promotes him to high priest and orders him to teach the people His forthcoming list of taboos.

When a burnt offering is made, God habitually provides the fire; and like any authoritarian, He becomes annoyed when His prerogatives are usurped, as He most famously made clear at Exodus 20 xiii. The offence may have been inadvertent - possibly resulting from intoxication, given God's subsequent threat to kill anyone from Aaron's family who enters the meeting tent after tasting alcohol - but the punishment, as usual, is immediate and unpleasant death. Both Moses and Aaron are wisely circumspect about the post-mortem arrangements, dumping the victims' bodies unceremoniously outside the camp and disassociating their deaths from the family's grief, so as not to fan the flames of the tyrant's displeasure.

Prevent Perverted

There is further bad news about the Prevent programme, the Government's scheme for co-opting schools, local councils and other public servants as informers for Home Office witch-hunts. Only a tenth of those denounced have been found to be at risk of radicalisation; more seriously, the largest number of referrals relate to fellow travellers of the Conservative Party rather than beastly Muslims. The minister for snoopery, James Brokenshire, made haste to imply that "the far left and single-issue extremists," viz. the likes of Momentum, Extinction Rebellion and the Black Lives Matter movement, are a threat to rank with Islamic terrorism and stabby gammons. As an apparatchik of the government fronted by Boris Johnson, Brokenshire proceeded to eructate an oracular denunciation of those who "promulgate twisted perversions of the truth," rather than simply lying outright as befits a British patriot.

Rut and Ruin

If the deliberate infliction of pain on a helpless victim constitutes an attack, then family values constitute one of the few remaining socially acceptable forms of sexual assault. By the act of bringing their offspring into existence, fathers and mothers inflict suffering on those offspring. By bringing their offspring into a global economy based on competition and deprivation, parents in the present day also ensure that their offspring will inflict suffering on others, since two persons cannot occupy the same space or consume the same resource. Certainly since 2015, as it has become increasingly clear that no action will be taken over the climate crisis except to worsen its consequences, no informed or educated person can claim the slightest moral excuse for conceiving children. To glorify breeding while faced with clear and present global disaster is to tout the trumping of reason and compassion by the brute urges of rabbits and rats. Granted, most of the new lives will include pleasure as well as suffering; but even a few breeders might consider it a little strange to justify a date-rape by citing the quality of the preceding dinner.

Right Royal Fun

Our approaching escape from the Euro-wog yoke has plunged the casting process for a forthcoming film into near-poetic depths of Britishness. Pablo Larraín, the Chilean director of dramas about life under the kind of people Margaret Thatcher admired, is preparing a film about the family difficulties of a clan of London-based benefit claimants, but the casting director has been forced to stipulate that those bearing passports of a certain colour need not apply. Major roles are usually cast with people who have the same citizenship as the financiers, and the backers of Larraín's film belong among the lesser breeds. Such refined ironies are a welcome touch amid the charmless farce, reminiscent of a late-period Carry On film rebooted by Julius Streicher, which has thus far characterised the patriotic posturing of the master race.

Institutional Hostility

Despite being led by the jolly racist rich boy Boris Johnson, who was preceded by the obsessively racist corporate consort Theresa May, who was preceded by the smarmily racist rich boy David Cameron, the Conservative Party has occasionally been known to adopt policies which might uncharitably be construed as racist. Taking unfair advantage of this philanthropic compulsion to address legitimate and understandable concerns, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission has defamed the hostile environment on the grounds that it worked. Not only was ill-treatment meted out on a regular basis to people the Conservatives dislike, but the Ministry for Wog Control provided an outstanding demonstration of its commitment to loutishness in the best bulldog tradition, and the Conservative Party was able to make due provision for the Johnson gang's legal self-enshrinement as a fatter breed without the law. Despite all this, the EHRC's report goes so far as to imply not only that the hostile environment had negative consequences, but that these same consequences were ignored rather than sniggered over. Doubtless the EHRC has succeeded only in furthering the case for its own privatisation and eventual sale to Trump, Tribble and Farage Community Relations, Inc.

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

As befitteth a Chriſtian and civiliſed Adminiſtration, Her Majeſty's Government is reſolved to call a Chriſtmas Truce with the Woo Han Peſtilence, which is expected to be in a pitiful State of Demoraliſation as the Feſtival approaches, thanks to the unbending reſolute Britiſhneſs of our preſent Reſiſtance. Indeed, ſuch hath been the Advances upon the Battlefield againſt this ſavage yet ſubtle Oriental Adverſary, that a leſs phlegmatick Race might eaſily believe the Conqueſt to be entire and the victorious Humours already broiling beneath the Guſsets of the Mighty. The inevitable Succeſs of our Holy Warre againſt the Heathen Diſeaſe muſt not be permitted to lure us into a fatal French Complaiſance, to which End our noble Leaders have permitted Gatherings not exceeding ſeverall Families, or Tribes or Tartans among the Natives of our Celtick Poſseſsions, except in thoſe Boroughs and Pariſhes where the taxable Propertie of the Electors doth not exceed the Value of one hundred and forty-four native Sheep of the ſame Borough or Pariſh, excluding Lambs under a Fortnight in Age and thoſe mature Beaſts which are utiliſed for Purpoſes purely erotick. In ſuch Circumſtances the Gatherings may go beyond the aforeſaid Limit, provided onlie that the ſecond-ſmalleſt back ſpare Bed-chamber of the neareſt Vicarage poſseſseth not a Hearth capable of roaſting a whole adult Gooſe without ſpattering more than ſeven gobs of Greaſe upon the Floor, including that utiliſed for Purpoſes purely erotick. It is to be hoped that the Woo Han Peſtilence, when faced with ſuch unpretentious Magnitude Simplicity and Reſolve, will manifeſt ſufficient Honour to fulfil its own Part, and to vaniſh unreſiſting and for ever from our Shores.

They Still Can't Keep Their Minds Off It

Having successfully blinked away the mote of child abuse, the Church of England is once more braced to tackle the beam in the eye of consensual homosexuality. This latest joyous plunge into yet another heavenly erotic episode has been precipitated by the gay-baiters, who have resurrected their eternal threat to gather up their skirts, flounce away and deprive the doddering church of their loving kindness and spiritual guidance should it fail to keep the perverts in their place. The archbishop of Canterbury responded with the moral backbone appropriate to his position, asserting that there are fine people on both sides and that the issues are much more complicated than certain simple-minded binary thinkers are making out. Undoubtedly, simple-minded binaries are the last thing anyone would hope to see in the church of sheep and goats, salvation and sin, heaven and hell, orthodox and heretic, and tithe-gatherer and Pharisee.