For Gallantry in the Face of Joysticks and Moral Qualms

Standard policy when it's all kicking off in the Cabinet is to dispatch the likes of Gove or Fallon to sneak a few headlines by saying something fatuous. Doubtless because the jabbering homunculus has gone all rah-rah for the Imperial Haystack once again, the post of honour this time has fallen to the blathering blimp at the Ministry for Wog-Bombing, who wants to grant the mental health of button-pushers parity of esteem with the physical risks taken by soldiers. Although American drone strikes in Iraq and Syria have killed at least four hundred and eighty-four civilians, the RAF heroically admits to bagging none but the guilty; nevertheless, the work can take a certain toll on the moral fibre, and the blustering blimp thinks a gong or two for the bravest would be just the thing. It is unclear how courage is to be measured in the absence of physical danger; but presumably the medals would be bestowed, in accordance with modern Conservative principles, upon anyone gallant enough to pay for them. It is certainly jolly decent of the blustering blimp to mouth such concern for the mental health of those who protect his government against the political perils of sending troops abroad and the tedious drudgery of negotiating with uppity foreigners; especially given his government's insouciant unconcern with the mental health of those lacking the entrepreneurial pluck and gumption to be killers for hire. Whether the idea will go any further than a quick snigger at the Party's post-Cenotaph belch-along remains to be seen.

Works Without Faith

Other than the Bullingdons playing at grown-ups or the Blairites faking a conscience, there can be few things less convincing than an outburst of humanitarian indignation from the dead-eyed warden of HM Prison UK. Nevertheless, it appears that Tin-Pot Tessie is suddenly much exercised by the stain of modern slavery, and her sermon on the matter has prompted a ludicrous paean from the Independent, where her sincerity is taken for granted thanks apparently to her long record of compassion for the vulnerable and her frequent homilies about unpaid work being the best route out of poverty. Like the Reverend Tony at his most unctuously disingenuous, Tin-Pot Tessie credits her mean little god as a prime motivator of her tireless quest for social justice: from her arming of the head-chopping House of Saud and her favouring of the G4S choirboys, right up to her zealous continuation of the Bullingdon Club's crusade for race-baiting, poor-bashing and cripple-kicking. As might be expected given that her government apparently sees the Grenfell Tower disaster as little more than an pretext for hustling a few more prospective deportees onto the database, the dead-eyed warden once more orders the public to look around for reasons to denounce their neighbours: a regrettable necessity given that someone or other has rather carelessly cut the police to bits; and, speaking no doubt as a non-Muslim, she urges particular vigilance towards people who "always cover their faces."

Tony's Healing Touch

Thanks to the imposition of enlightened Western values by the Reverend Blair and his chimpanzee chum, the emergent democracy of Iraq has been dealing with its terrorist problem with a degree of moral assertiveness of which even the British Home Office can only dream. At least eighty-eight people were hanged last year, and at least one sixteen-year-old is at risk of being strung up unless a way can be found to deport her back to her native Germany. Although this is obviously less civilised than the American way of dropping suspects into black holes like Guantánamo, let alone the British way of trial by tabloid followed by reformation at the hands of those well-meaning G4S people, it certainly cannot be said that nothing was achieved by the Reverend Blair's great crusade for civilisation.

Retreat from Kabul

Another enemy of the people has crawled from the wormy woodwork of British justice to interfere with the cleansing of Britain's streets and the relieving of the national constipation. As is well known, because the likes of the Farage Falange have said it so often, the UK is full up and cannot afford to support asylum seekers who come over here to take advantage of the free hospitality offered by those charming G4S people. Britain especially cannot afford asylum seekers who have the temerity to act as carers for British "citizens", thereby contributing to the present glut of social care workers and putting professionals out of a job. Accordingly, the race-baiting Clegg-pledger at the Ministry for Wog Control has been shaking the magic money tree to battle metropolitan élitists for her right under natural justice to deport an Afghan asylum seeker. The criminal had ludicrously claimed that his life would be in danger from the Taliban, who have been such fluffy bunnies recently that the Government wants to send more troops to fight them. But of course, as everyone knows, the Taliban are dangerous only to real people; where asylum seekers are concerned they magically metamorphose into the sort of decent, moderate Muslims who showed such pluck and gumption against the USSR's proto-Corbynite invasion. Nevertheless, no sooner had the asylum seeker been deposited back home than the Clegg-pledging race-baiter was ordered to uproot him from his natural habitat and return him to the heaving, straining bowels of the Recrudescent Imperium. The extent of likely damage to the white working class has yet to be properly assessed.

Much to Learn

In the wake of North Korea's latest provocation, which comprised lobbing a ballistic missile over Hokkaido and annoying some fish, the Heathen Chinee have responded with typical sinister subtlety. Although North Korea has accused the US and the South of plotting to invade, and regularly threatens to rain fire and fury upon the World Cop and its Asian allies presumably up to and including Jehovah, the Heathen Chinee are suggesting, of all things, that Washington might consider toning down the rhetoric. Given that America and its allies have only invaded North Korea once, and killed off a purely expendable fifth of the population for the benefit of some expatriate thugs and pro-Japanese quislings, this is of course outrageous. A spokeswoman for the Heathen Chinee Department for Foreign Devils has even implied that the ones who should take responsibility for sorting things out are those who messed them up in the first place; which clearly runs counter to any conceivable notion of civilised values, common decency and unperverted banking.

The Deserving Few

Celestial day of high and mighty glory
Within our patriotic island story:
The kicking of some nasty Nazi bums
By WInston Churchill and his Air Force chums,
When Britain stood alone against the foe
(Just Lend and Lease to keep her on the go),
In conflict with a dire oppressor hurled
While ruling over merely half the world.

Recall, this day, that happy time when we
From foreign-born intruders fought us free,
Letting no European empire vex
Our land with Germans, Frenchies, Poles or Czechs;
And condescend commemorative due.
Praise and remember the deserving Few.

Victor Flyte

Strung Along

In the unopposed appointment of its ninth member, the Commons Science and Technology Committee has made an encouraging concession to the demands of diversity: although Graham Stringer is the eighth male and the eighth white person out of the nine, he is impressively qualified to balance out any small bias the committee may have in favour of actual science. Not only does the erudite Stringer believe that dyslexia doesn't exist; he is also a climate change denier and a member of Nigel Lawson's disinformation club, the Globular Whining Plutocrats Foundation. In the spirit of the BBC balancing mainstream neoliberals with ranters from the Farage Falange, or the Government setting the terms of inquiries into its own mendacity and negligence, Stringer's appointment will indubitably ensure that all acceptable points of view are taken into proper account.

A Nice Fat Scoop

The ever-glistening editor of the London Evening Osborne has continued his long career of public service by personally undertaking field research into Press ethics. The sometime restaurant-smasher, poor-basher and cripple-kicker was discovered unobtrusively basking in the fragrance exuded by such party colleagues and journalistic eminences as the Imperial Haystack, the jabbering homunculus Michael Gove and the Murdoch drone in charge of NHS demolition. Engineers from Thames Water are now doing their best to extricate the former chancellor from the consequences of his economic miracle, which numbered among its many blessings a near-total lack of interest in shoring up the country's infrastructure. Although the editor of the London Evening Osborne, being a congealed 130-tonne block of wet-wipes, nappies, fat and oil, fit in quite naturally with his new surroundings, the Museum of London has expressed an interest in putting "perhaps a chin or two" on display as a warning to future generations, provided that the sample can be pickled sufficiently well to disguise its objectionable odour while preserving its uniquely sebaceous texture. The lead curator of the museum expressed the hope that today's problems might be solved and forgotten in as little as fifty years, although even the most extreme predictions of rising sea levels have not been so optimistic as to claim that they will wash away the editor of the London Evening Osborne.

Nice Pax Britannica, Shame if it Got Broken

Plucky little Britain has once more defied the uppity Euro-wogs by ignoring all the silly, obscurantist talk about paying our dues and citizens' rights, and focusing with rectal-tunnel vision on the Government's eminently sensible threat to withdraw the mainland from collective security arrangements and leave the continent at the mercy of the Russian Bear. Since all the Euro-wogs seem to want to talk about is mere money and the rights of mere migrants, the blithering prima donna David Davis and his chums have pointed out the eminently relevant fact that Britain has lots and lots of weapons, and that Britain and France are the only European countries important enough to be emulated by North Korea; except of course that, as was most recently made clear by the film Dunkirk, France doesn't really count. The Imperial Haystack and the blathering blimp at the Ministry for Wog-Bombing both joined in the chorus of undiminished unwaveringness and unwavering undiminishability; but it remains as yet unclear whether the Euro-wogs will be manly enough to take the hint.

The Usual Remedy

Although tuberculosis has a role
In keeping down the breeding British prole,
It does evince some little social harm
When loosed upon the British dairy farm.
A health emergency, no less! and hence
Too serious a thing for evidence.
Instead, we'll kill and cure by our tradition
Of good old-fashioned Huntin', Shootin', Fishin' -
Join up, all you chaps brave and British-bred:
Bag that non-profit-making quadruped!

Tweedie Lackchin