Why We Fight

In a telling indication of his hokey-cokey commitment to the European Union, Britain's Head Boy has delegated the brilliant Iain Duncan Smith to stir up a bit of patriotism among the proles. Given his long record of quiet good sense and his position as minister of forced labour, in a sane world Duncan Smith would be one of those few who command slightly less respect than Nick Clegg; and of course we cannot discount the possibility that his appearance was another of those delightful Bullingdon japes, like appointing Jeremy C Hunt to the Ministry of Health.

Anyway, Duncan Smith proclaimed his loyalty to his Leader, on the grounds that among all his other positive achievements Daveybloke is "the first man to veto a European treaty". Duncan Smith stated that "we have to figure out where [Britain's relationship with the EU] is going" before cockadoodling that it doesn't have to go anywhere because Britain can have it any which way we want. Duncan Smith complimented his interlocutor, Andrew Marr, on his book A Television Presenter's History of the World, which apparently shows what a jolly place the world was when Britain, "as a remarkable country for good and trade", was in charge of it all. Then, with a poppy in his lapel, Duncan Smith cuckooed that nothing has changed in that regard since the eve of the First World War.

Duncan Smith denied that Britain would stop trading with Europe, which doubtless brought forth sighs of relief in Paris and Berlin; and Duncan Smith also noted that in our spare time we're propping up the United States: "we invest more in the US than any other country in the world". It is to be hoped that the presidential candidates took a moment away from their own little affairs in order to absorb Duncan Smith's profundities.