Insidious Overtures

Notwithstanding our glorious liberation from the ghastly Euro-wogs, it appears that the Recrudescent Imperium of Westminster, Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands is having some small difficulty in continuing to punch above its weight. Having been brushed off by the Japanese over the prospect of a trade deal - and this despite the famous non-bribing of Nissan with a substantial fiscal stability inducement - Tin-Pot Tessie threw herself mouth-first into the minefield of international diplomacy, by standing shoulder to shoulder with the grandson of a major Imperial Japanese war criminal and ordering the Heathen Chinee to get on with sorting out North Korea. The Heathen Chinee, who seem to think Tin-Pot Tessie is some sort of Trumpster sycophant just because she elbowed her way to the head of the grovel-queue by inviting him to meet the Queen, have responded in a rather undiplomatic fashion, and doubtless the Ministry for Lesser Breeds is applying its expertise to decoding the conundrum. Should things become too subtle and enigmatic, of course, the Foreign Secretary can always clear them up thanks to his background in yellow journalism.

Religious Truths

Half a century after the Empire withdrew its civilising influence, certain parties in India seem to be getting the hang of British values. Hindu petitioners are attempting a bit of historical cleansing over the Taj Mahal, which has hitherto been suspected of harbouring some sort of Muslim influence. According to one P N Oak, who evidently aspires to be the subcontinent's answer to Erich von Däniken or David Irving, the monument is really a Hindu temple which predates the Muslim invasion. The claim is now being tested in court, by Hindus demanding that their co-religionists be allowed to worship there; for, as is well known, the crying shortage of opportunities for Hindu worship in India is rivalled only by the ferocious persecution of Anglicans in Britain. The pro-Muslim cabal has responded with mere facts from government archaeologists; but in the event that the issue cannot be settled to the satisfaction of all parties it is to be hoped that Her Majesty's Government will stand ready to intervene on the side of truth and justice. Certainly the Imperial Haystack should be prepared to testify that the Taj Mahal is actually a British erection, its famous dome providing conclusive evidence of its status as a dry run for the more tasteful pile that is St Paul's Cathedral.

Historical Economy

Despite Tin-Pot Tessie's cultural and political affinities with the régime in North Korea, she has condemned the latest missile launch as a "reckless provocation," unlike any rains of fire and fury threatened by her friend the Trumpster, and entirely unlike the present military buildup in South Korea by the USA and its chums. To Western minds the missile launch inevitably conjures up ghosts of the traumatic era where Korean history begins: namely the Korean war, in which both Japan and the USA were invaded, carpet-bombed and subjected to savage atrocities by North Korea and its quisling helpers. Among the war's victims was Kishi Nobusuké, benefactor of Manchukuo and comforter of women; who also happened to be the maternal grandfather of the present Japanese prime minister. North Korea's persistent missile launches are of concern to Britain because they inconvenience many more fish than the ongoing rampage in Yemen by the head-chopping House of Saud's crusaders for British values. Although Japan's response to the Recrudescent Imperium's orders for a trade deal independent of Euro-wog interference has thus far been lukewarm, the stability of Japanese fish is considered vital to the Government's plans for massively expanding Britain's command of the international chips and vinegar market.

Oil and Troubled Waters

Those Heathen Chinee, with their slanted sense of humour, have surely gone too far this time. Although the city of Houston is naturally prone to flooding, the unprecedented extent of the damage this year points to the effects of climate change; which, as we all know, is a cunning Oriental hoax aimed at the American economy. It's all very well when a few bunches of Haitians are swept into oblivion; but Houston, damn it, includes facilities owned by the petroleum industry, which will doubtless be self-relying themselves back to normal pretty soon, without hindrance from any freedom-stealing, un-American, big-government interventions. In the meantime, the rainclouds over the city have been lightened with an assertive flash of orange, as the Trumpster has indicated his intention to visit the state of Texas even though no golf courses are thought to be in danger.

Me at Poetry24:
Up the Flagpole

Toddling Towards Trouble

Well, here's a thing: even after the joyful combustion of bushels of red tape, and the sacking of simply squillions of unnecessary bureaucrats, the natural party of government still cannot implement its major manifesto pledges. Tumbledown Tessie's promise of thirty days' free childcare is due to be fulfilled in a few days; but as usual nobody has bothered to work out the funding properly, and matters are not being helped by Whitehall's hideous co-dependent relationship with those new electrical computing machines. All in all, the pledge looks set to go a bit Liberal Democrat, which happens so often these days that in other circumstances it would barely be newsworthy; especially as a spokesbeing has proclaimed that compensation is available for anyone who can afford to claim it. Nevertheless, the victims in this case are not citizens of nowhere, not mere northerners in search of a handout, nor yet some uppity proles who may have thought themselves bound for the boardroom just because someone or other said so; the victims in this case are those who speak as mothers. If Tumbledown Tessie and her schoolboys cannot properly pander to breeders of new Britons, the incubators for the stockbrokers and shelf-stackers of the Recrudescent Imperium, then the natural party of government could soon start looking very unnatural indeed.

No Hard Feelings, Then

Dear Migrant (first name, last name), kindly note:
We'd like you on the earliest plane or boat
As can be managed without undue strain
To British infrastructure. We'll detain
Your half-breed brats in some discreet resort
And then, with due regret, we shall deport
Should you continue, with your British spouse,
To take up British space in British house.
Unworthy though you are of native boon,
We hope to see you as a tourist soon;
Till then, be grateful we have left you free
To make your own way home. Love, HMG.
PS. Hang on, for even in Whitehall
Honest mistakes can happen to us all.
Unfortunate, that error; just relax
For now, and don't forget to pay your tax.

H O Dreardumb

On a Diplomatic Note

Few things are much more perilous, in global politics,
Than crazy nuclear powers getting up to crazy tricks.
When xenophobes, control freaks and the warlike in strange lands
Get launch codes and red buttons and such toys into their hands,
Before you've worked out where you are, the warheads may be flying,
With consequences that, for some, might prove a little trying.
From Libya through Iraq unto the new Afghani Raj,
The dangers in a lack of true deterrent are writ large;
And hence, amid new ratchetings of tension and of fear,
Some loony little country has been warned by North Korea.

Gon Jing-Go

Sucker Punch

Further moral dilemmas have erupted in Australia, quite apart from the ongoing concerns about its legislators' ethnic purity. The head of the colony's overseas intelligence agency has been photographed mugging with the Philippine charmer Rodrigo Duterte. The spymaster imitated the hand gesture used by Duterte during the latter's trumpsteropathic presidential campaign last year, in which he pledged to adopt a no-nonsense, common-sense approach to the war on drugs. Since his election, the police have encountered a conspicuous absence of red tape, and for the past few months the army has been giving the shock-and-awe treatment to the city of Marawi. Since the pretext is that some local hooligans are operating under the Islamic State franchise, Duterte has put twenty million people under martial law and the USA and Australia have eagerly leapt in with offers of military support. It remains as yet unclear whether Australian concerns over the spymaster's clowning stem from fears of being sucked into another military fiasco, or apprehension at being associated with a man suspected of sharing values with Liam Fox.

A Legitimate and Understandable Lack of Concern

Another enemy of the people has emerged to carp and cavil at the Government's non-racist, common-sense approach to keeping Britain free of asylum-seeking cockroaches. One such from Chad, who somehow managed to get himself tortured in Libya despite the civilising effect of Anglo-American wog-bombing, is being held in detention despite repeated court orders for him to be released. The race-baiting Clegg-pledger at the Ministry for Dawn Raids and Deportations does not dispute that the torture victim is a victim of torture, and does not defend the fact that he remains in detention; she just doesn't care very much. Such is the Government's enthusiasm for compliance with English law that the Clegg-pledging race-baiter refused even to condescend to hire a lawyer who could argue her lack of a case. The high court judge claimed to find it "inconceivable" that a minister of the Crown might have more important things to do than defend the will of the people, even in situations where the tax situation in the Bahamas is not a factor. The cockroach in question has been described as "extremely vulnerable," which doubtless explains the Home Office's sympathetic attitude. Few things are better guaranteed to bring patriotic self-pity to the point of volcanic suppuration than the travails of inferior persons.

Leaden Leading

Much as Britain's leadership in the fight for peace in the Middle East is demonstrated by the sale of weapons for the head-chopping House of Saud to give Yemen the shock-and-awe treatment, so Britain's leadership in the fight against pollution is epitomised by the sale of lead fuel additives to the only country in the world where this particular method of poisoning children remains legal. Algeria, which takes the Boris Johnson approach to pollution, keeps on placing orders with Innospec Limited, apparently the world's last remaining manufacturer of tetraethyl lead, which causes premature death and brain damage in people who don't matter very much. Since the orders are being placed and the stuff is being manufactured, the company cannot do anything except fulfil the orders, because there is no alternative; and since the stuff is being manufactured and the company is fulfilling the orders, the Government is reluctant to interfere because there is no alternative. It is in the nature of the free market for buyers and sellers to come together, in defiance of Stalinistic regulations in favour of public health; and if Innospec Limited stopped manufacturing the stuff Algeria would grind to a halt because there is no alternative.

UN Deserving

Citizens of nowhere and enemies of the people have massed yet another fifth column in the latest attempt to undermine the sovereignty of Her Majesty's Government and the Recrudescent Imperium of Westminster, Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands. A conspiracy of advocates for interference with the free market are soon to submit a report to a United Nations Committee, in which they are expected to make numerous unpleasant remarks about the past decade of Government cripple-kicking. Although successive administrations have given the disabled every possible incentivisation to take up their beds and walk, from removing sloth-inducing income to relieving them of motivation-sapping accommodation, the forces of Stalinist bureaucracy will never be satisfied until every wheelchair-lounging scrounger is being treated like a hard-working family with legitimate and understandable concerns. It is only too easy to imagine the state of our British values if, despite all the struggles of the past decade, this deplorable situation should ever come to pass.

Catch Them Young

Enlightened Western values are being imposed at an encouraging rate of assertiveness by Britain's favourite Islamic fundamentalists, according to a draft report for the United Nations. Fifty-one per cent of all child deaths and injuries in Yemen last year are thought to have resulted from the moderate peace-keeping activities of the head-chopping House of Saud, whose bombing campaign has been supplemented by a cholera epidemic and by an approach to public health workers which doubtless causes gussets to moisten all along Whitehall. Naturally, given that Middle Eastern children habitually grow up into migratory cockroaches, Her Majesty's Government has provided weapons and training to the Saudis and their fellow pest controllers, while piously admonishing the very fine people on all sides to avoid excessive emulation of recent Anglo-American crusades in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A Light Day's Work for the Pall-Bearers

One of the Conservative Party's most prominent enablers has belatedly discovered the disadvantage of flogging off public assets to foreign asset-strippers. Now that he has no little red box to quiet his qualms, the former Minister for Mates' Rates has reverted to delivering oracular warnings about the perils of profiteering, and has even suggested that the Government's privatisation of the green investment bank may be the "final nail in the coffin" of green Conservatism. We eagerly await the elder statesman's profundities on any nails in the coffins of unicorns, the tooth fairy and the United Kingdom's moral pre-eminence in the international community.

Getting Our Hands Dirty

When exercising soft power and exerting moral force to bring about positive change, not even the Recrudescent Imperium of Westminster, Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands can rest content with merely criticising from the sidelines. That's why the Imperial Haystack's Ministry for Wogs and Piccaninnies has almost nothing to hide about mucking in with international aid money to help fund British values in Egypt, including assertive measures against enemies of the people and citizens of nowhere. The Imperial Haystack and his chums have a nice little nest-egg called the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund: a name in which one can recognise the sublime sense of right-wing humour which led the brilliant Iain Duncan Smith to call his pet thick-tank the Centre for Social Justice. The CSSF comprises £1.1 thousand million in taxpayers' money, but the Imperial Haystack and his chums consider it beneath themselves to give taxpayers, or even their fellow parliamentary expenses claimants, any information as to how it is being spent. Human rights meddlers have requested, of all things, details, and have been brushed off with the standard response that it is not in the public interest for the public to know how its money is being spent; especially now that parliamentary sovereignty and democratic control have been wrested from the beastly Euro-wogs and placed in the stable, secure and unconflicted hands of the Imperial Haystack and his chums.

Whoso Shall Offend One of These Little Ones, Let Him be Absolved and Allowed to Do it Again

Australia at the moment has some serious issues to consider. As if it were not enough that the country's legislature and executive appear to comprise largely of ghastly foreigners, a man with an invisible friend has proclaimed that he would rather go to prison than help protect children from sexual abuse, should such help involve violating the pact of silence between the invisible friend and the abuser. As humble, modest intermediaries between penitents and the Infinite, Roman Catholic priests naturally consider themselves above the law; and if the law should be changed to reflect trendy modernist ideas about preventing rape and other abuses, then the law will be wrong. The sanctity of the confessional matters more than protecting children, let alone mere women; certainly it matters more than helping abusers to stop harming others, unless a few mumbles to the invisible one and a priestly admonition to turn oneself in can be said to constitute an effective rehabilitation programme. If priests would rather go to prison, then we must hope for charity's sake that Australia will give them their wish, and let them take their invisible friend along to protect them at shower-time.

Me at Poetry24:
The Judge to His Mistress

Let's Be Clear About This

There is no room for racism in the party of Winston Churchill, Enoch Powell, Norman Tebbit and Theresa May. There is no room for anti-semitism in the party whose policies are guided by the ravings of the Rothermere Daily Stürmer and the tax-dodging squillionaires who set up the Farage Falange. There is almost certainly no equivalence between those who say one thing and those who say the opposite, unless they both happen to be Boris Johnson. Theresa May thinks it is important - not vital, not morally imperative, and certainly not Anglican - to condemn the views of the far right, except insofar as such views are compatible with racist vans, corporate piracy and child imprisonment. Above all, there is no reason why a fluorescent orange rubber Boris Johnson remake shouldn't meet a relative of Edward VIII and Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon if such is the desire of the psychopathic tribble on his head.

Alternative Facts

Even in the United States, cancer sufferers who use fake remedies are more likely to die than those treated with actual medicine, according to research which is merely scientific. A team from Yale University found that almost four-fifths of cancer patients who relied on medical treatment were still alive after five years, compared with just over half of those who relied on placebos and confidence tricks. Nevertheless, "anecdotal evidence from some" - always an infallible source in these enlightened times - proclaims that cancer can be cured by homeopathic remedies. Our own Minister for Healthcare Profitability has himself been known to shill for snake-oil on occasion; although in his case it's unclear whether he is stupid enough to believe it will cure anyone of anything, or whether he is operating on the traditional British socio-economic principle that what doesn't work is often cheaper than what does.

Human Interest

Being wrongly accused of anything can be very upsetting, and being arrested must be yet more so, even if one is quickly exonerated (or, as often happens to terrorist suspects, "released without charge"). Having one's name splashed all over the newspapers, in connection with an ugly assault that could well have been something much worse if not for the exemplary conduct of a London bus driver, must be very upsetting as well. Indeed, by the reckoning of Britain's leading liberal newspaper, if one is an affluent white male banker on the end of such an accusation, the upset may be severe enough to be newsworthy; quite unlike the upsets of lesser breeds, who must be used to this sort of thing by now.

A Touch of Gove

Among the coalition's more brilliant plans for Britain's schools was the idea that teachers who had been sacked or driven out of the profession could be cheaply replaced in no time by ex-military personnel. Piloted by the jabbering homunculus Michael Gove with his usual depth of competence, the scheme was a flop; but connoisseurs of British education will be happily reminded of Gove's glory by the case of seventeen army instructors accused of spicing up their charges' battle training with a bit of playground fun. The accused are thought to have participated in the crusades in Afghanistan and Iraq, which may have resulted in some confusion as to what sort of teaching methods are best suited to the master race. It may also have resulted in a degree of post-traumatic stress which, if the instructors are found guilty, will certainly be helped in a prison system that has also recently benefited from the golden touch of Gove.

Moderate Migrant-Bashers

There are fears among the racist rabble formerly known as the Farage Falange that the next heir to the strutting Caudillo might lead the party into disrepute. Having been led in the past by a lying, thieving racist and by a lying racist, the Falange now has a choice of eleven candidates for the privilege of failing to win seats in Parliament and getting free publicity from the BBC. Participants in the freak-show include a liar named Jane Collins, a twit named Aiden Powlesland and a gay-basher with an equine fixation. In such eminently sane territory, it seems strange to talk of moderates; but apparently the Farage Falange has them, and they are disquieted by the favourite for the Caudillo's throne, one Peter Whittle, whose modest ambitions include remaking the party into a "cultural movement" to cleanse the nation of multiculturalism. But the moderates are even more worried about the candidacy of one Anne Marie Waters, an Islamophobe with chums in the British National Party. In the event of a Waters win, some senior members have threatened to quit the Grand Purple Conflab and, presumably, look for a more profitable home in the party's parliamentary wing as soon as the latter ditches Tumbledown Tessie in favour of someone less liberal.

Political Predators

Grouse, n. A flying creature bred at vast expense on very private land purely for the pleasure of having it shot down. Distinct from the fighter aircraft in that the grouse has greater nutritional value.
The Satanic Supplement

Despite its deplorable tendency towards non-English nationalism and Euro-wog fifth-columnitude, Scotland does occasionally have its uses. During the good old days, under the blessed régime of the sainted Thatcher, the province served as a testing ground for weapons later to be unleashed upon the rest of the country, such as the poll tax; and even now, after decades of one-party rule by the fiendish SNP, it retains an important function as the home of Britain's independent random-directional American nuclear deterrent. Arguably even more vital to the nation is Scotland's status as a playground for the financially virtuous, such as golf-playing orange toddlers under the control of head-dwelling hydrophobic tribbles, and also the more refined and noble breed who find the epitome of civilised pastimes shooting lumps of metal into artificially fattened birds. Naturally, given the uppity political atmosphere provoked by the recent referendum, mere experts are doing what they can to undermine this glorious tradition, by grousing that the management of moors for aristocratic blast-and-blather is endangering golden eagles, hen harriers and other rivals to more enterprising species such as the great Anglo-American dodo and the lesser Ruritanian peacock. Although industry representatives have denied the findings, which would certainly be the end of the matter for the jabbering homunculus that is Westminster's environment secretary, his counterpart in the fiendish SNP has had the temerity to take actual action, and has even threatened to employ more experts and thereby stir up yet more trouble. How such a laughably inefficient government can hope to attain independence from the world-bestriding Protestant Imperium of Westminster, Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands must qualify as one of the more occult mysteries of present-day politics.

Keeping Small Businessmen Afloat

Buccaneering entrepreneurs in the migrant disposal business have attained near-Bullingdon heights of moral grandeur in their continued striving to protect British jobs. Rather than allowing the hordes to swarm into Yemen, where before dying of cholera they might potentially obtain British weaponry for nefarious purposes, the more advanced international transportation executives are simply shoving their excess cockroaches into the sea before heading back to Africa and picking up another load. It would take a true citizen of nowhere to find any objection to this business plan, which combines maximal economic efficiency with a minimum of red tape. In their primitive dusky way, the international transportation executives have even adopted the optimistic, positive-thinking approach favoured by Her Majesty's Government, by omitting mention of any British-sponsored wars and plagues and allowing deserving non-drowners to muddle through on their own meritocratic virtues.

Stitching Up is a Girl Job

Along with one or two other little matters, Her Majesty's Government has difficulties with the English language. Even the obnoxious disyllabic neologism whose definition was the Government's to determine has proved beyond its powers: from the android headmistress through the sniggering schoolboys to the thick-headed bullies and blue-rinsers, nobody knows what Brexit means. Thus it hardly seems fair to expect the same blathering rabble to understand what a conflict of interest looks like, even with the former Minister for Werritty burbling and squeaking in Cabinet meetings. A government that consulted fast-food companies about reforming the National Health Service is hardly likely to be sensitive to the subtleties of independent reviews; especially when the review in question concerns nothing more than building regulations and fire safety, viz. red tape. Accordingly, the Government has further demonstrated the quantity of toss it gives about Grenfell Tower by appointing, as chair of the said review, a former director of a body which promotes products containing the material which apparently made the tower so conveniently combustible. Dame Judith Hackitt resigned from that role a full twenty-four hours before the Minister for Mere Minorities appointed her to chair the review, so that's all right. Of course, Dame Judith herself had no part in approving products; similarly, I dare say there are many parliamentary expenses claimants who voted enthusiastically for all the Government's anti-NHS measures, have financial interests in private healthcare and yet somehow manage to refrain from performing surgery.

Back-Stabbed Into Peace

Greasy foreign doings are once again afoot among the Euro-wogs. The Spanish foreign minister, under pretence of taking pity on Britain's inability to point a nuclear missile in the proper direction, has cunningly sabotaged any pretext for sending an armada to rescue Gibraltar from the grip of the Brusso-Strasbourg-Madrileño axis. Although Britain has reacted with fury on several occasions, such as when the king of Spain suggested that a solution which was acceptable to all involved might be acceptable to the British, the prospects of starting a war over the foreign minister's statement appear depressingly remote. Fortunately, the Government's other major hope for a bit of bang to go with the bluster, namely a resurgence of the Troubles in Ireland, remains a plausible option even if British troops are not called upon to assist the Trumpster in dealing with North Korea, Iran, Venezuela or the Republican Party.

This Madness Must End

Consistent prioritisation of mental health services, and lots of extra squillions being spent each day we continue to defy the Euro-wogs about paying our dues, have ensured that a seriously disturbed young person can occasionally get a hospital bed provided their case is publicised by a senior judge and splattered across the front pages of our free, fearless and cantankerous Press. Despite this commendable progress from the bad old days of socialist inefficiency when healthcare had some abstruse theoretical basis in need, the judge in question seems to think that the Minister for Profitable Incarceration and the Clegg-pledging race-baiter at the Home Office are in some way responsible for the health of those who can't even be bothered to go private. The enemy of the people has even ordered a copy of his judgement to be sent to the health secretary; which only goes to show once again how far out of touch with the national priorities our unelected judges have become.

Spiced Up

Among the more annoying tendencies of mere experts is the unwavering belief in their own correctitude purely on the grounds that mere reality happens to match their predictions. In mature and enlightened political cultures like our own, where democracy essentially consists of militarised advertising, such retrograde quibbles are entirely out of place, and may even put the quibbler at risk of becoming a pessimist, a nay-sayer and an enemy of the people. Nevertheless, Professor David Nutt, who was fired from the Home Office advisory council on drugs for his inadequacy in bending mere facts to New Labour policy, has evidently failed to take the hint. Along with other interfering do-gooders, including the police and crime commissioner for North Wales, Nutt is proclaiming that, as predicted, drug bans serve simply to drive the trade underground and make it harder to control, while the absence of red tape means that the drugs themselves can become even stronger and more buccaneering than before. Not one of the pessimists has noticed that the policy's ill effects are concentrated in, and therefore the fault of, prisoners and the homeless and young people in care: groups in whose welfare Her Majesty's Government has made emphatically clear that it has no interest whatever.

Faith-Based Policy

Young men who run off to Syria to fight for Islamic State frequently know as much about Islam as the cadres of the Farage Falange know about Britain, according to research by the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism. The report states that ISIS dupes tend to be from disadvantaged backgrounds and have low levels of education, and to be motivated more by promises of a better life than by fanatical devotion to the Prophet. It is even claimed that the role of the internet is less to recruit and indoctrinate new blood than to confirm ideas which have already been suggested in personal encounters, and that a "practical, effective and proportionate response should start from a sound understanding of the root causes of the problem."

Little of this will be relevant to the security crusaders in Whitehall, for whom social and financial disadvantage is never a root cause of anything, but merely a symptom of lower-class laziness and depravity; and the idea that reporting schoolchildren to MI5 might cause the infantine resources to rethink their Britishness is of course absurd upon the face of it. The race-baiting Clegg-pledger at the Home Office will certainly not be interested in any report which implies that universal internet snoopery may not be the anti-terroristic panacea; although she may well take on board the idea that meatware-to-meatware interfaces should also be subject to rigorous surveillance, at least when the meatware is suspected of being halal.

We Must Speak Louder

Another foreigner with a funny name has dared to criticise Tin-Pot Tessie's hostile environment, and even to praise those citizens of nowhere who embrace the swarming hordes of non-Britishness. Though apparently not of the more overtly dangerous dusky female persuasion, the assistant commissioner at the UN High Commission for Refugees even had the temerity to urge an increase in Britain's cockroach intake, and to imply that Her Majesty's Government, of all the cool-headed realists in the world, might be tempted to use emotive issues for the purposes of cheap political posturing. He does not appear to have gone so far as to imply that the best way to prevent a refugee crisis might be to stop creating refugees; but clearly the United Nations, no less than the Euro-wogs, the beastly Russians, the Heathen Chinee and all those Yemeni health tourists, needs putting in its place.

Taking the Piscatorial

In accordance with David Davis' Dunkirk-inspired Brexit policy of transitional capitulation, the jabbering homunculus that is Michael Gove has been informing foreign fishing persons that they can, after all, still come over here and filch our stocks. Being British, and having been governed for the past thirty-eight years by people who share Michael Gove's ideas about forward planning, long-term strategy and other red tape, we naturally have no industrial capacity to profit from keeping the Euro-wogs away, even assuming that the former Minister for Werritty can negotiate an international trade agreement to sell frozen cod to the Japanese. Accordingly, the jabbering homunculus has informed the Danes that they are welcome to Britain's leftovers, while assuring the plucky little Anglo-Saxons back home that taking back control means taking back control. It remains as yet unclear whether any of the pessimistic citizens of nowhere in the civil service have dared to inform the jabbering homunculus that, thanks to previous policy, Britain doesn't have much with which to enforce its self-made rules against any Viking incursions; or whether the jabbering homunculus is resolved to station himself on the beaches, like the great Danish king Cnut the Anagrammatic, and order the fish and the foreigners to behave.

Are There No Workhouses?

Given that Tumbledown Tessie pledged to re-house all survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire within three weeks, it should surprise nobody that, seven weeks after the event, more than two-thirds of the survivors remain in emergency accommodation. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, they of the two hundred and fifty million in reserves that were too good to waste on health and safety, have inadvertently let slip that nearly two thousand properties in the area are vacant; but the owners are real people, whose hard-earned real estate is not for the use of proles who might lower the market value. Sajid Javid, the Minister for Mere Minorities, tactfully implied that the slow pace of prole warehousing was all the survivors' fault for turning down offers; their ingratitude is particularly galling as some of the offers were located outside the borough, thereby making emphatically clear the concern on the part of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to ensure that they are not forced to remain in a gentrified area where they would only feel out of place.

Fine Work

Despite recent minor setbacks such as having to pay a billion and a half from the magic money tree in order to purchase the bare pretence of a democratic mandate, Her Majesty's Government remains as obsessively committed as ever to abolishing the hated public sector. Since privatisation saves money, increases efficiency and is nothing whatever to be ashamed of, the Courts and Tribunals Service has sneaked out the announcement that it is consulting with hired thugs about the possibility of outsourcing the collection of court fines. If the policy goes through, it could lead to the sacking of as many as a hundred and fifty people the redistribution of their salaries; quite possibly in favour of Tin-Pot Tessie's own favourite boot-boys, those deserving people at G4S. Nevertheless, in spite of all these advantages the Government has waited until the summer break to release the glorious news. One would almost think they had something to hide.