Prefects and New Bugs

Among the natural characteristics of the conservative mindset is a tendency for old habits to die hard; and this trait has a tendency to particular dominance among persons whose intellectual capacities strain towards the insectile, or even the amoebic. Hence the obvious inability among the various sclerotic schoolboys in Her Majesty's Government to rein in their long-unleashed enthusiasm for bamboozling the public. Although his colleagues Michael Green and Sebastian Fox may be as yet on-message, the Graybeing wannabe Grant Shapps has incurred a rebuke from Big School for treating the voters like first-year squits and telling them whoppers about the rules on tuck. In a similar vein, the jabbering homunculus Michael "Ripped" Gove decided to come over all expert about fitness, prescribing walking and jogging routines for all the world as if he once wrote a leader on the subject for the Murdoch press. Following the ministerial example, police forces are strong-arming in all directions, ordering Bozza's Britons to abstain from rest during exercise and to give up Easter eggs for Lent. Even during a merely global emergency, there might be a case for asking British public figures to act like grown-ups; it remains as yet unclear whether Her Majesty's Government will countenance so flagrant a breach with the Conservative Party's famous libertarian traditions.

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

There are Rumours among the ſervants that the Peſtilence hath ſo far forgot itſelf as to aſsault the Prince of Wales. Upon ſetting out for my Morning Jaunt I overheard one of the Maids goſsiping with a Coſtermonger's Apprentice and making reference to a Poore old Farte, and having had the Litter ſet down I impoſed a ſummary Sentence of an extra Brace of Turns with the Riding-crop, whereupon ſhe offered in Mitigation that ſhe was referring not to her revered Maſter but only to the Heir Apparent of the Imperial Throne. Exerciſing much Forbearance I explained to the Benighted Wench that this repreſented no diminution of her Sin, that a Prince of the Realm is ſurely ſafe from any Complaint of Vagrants and Foreigners, and that I hope to acquaint myſelf with the Prince by and by once appropriately ensconſed in the Offices of Her Majeſty's Government. To facilitate her Underſtanding I increaſed the penaltie to five extra Turns with the Riding-crop. Too late I thought better of it, for this Maid is a ſtrapping ſort, which meant in the Event that I had to call in one of the Footmen to help complete the Sentence. It is moſt inconvenient when using the Litter, as to-day the Footman can barely ſtand while I can barely ſit, ſuch is the State of our reſpective Buttocks, but above all elſe the Houſehold of an Engliſh Gentleman must have Diſcipline.

Bad Theology

Text for today: Acts of the Apostles 1 xv-xxvi

After the resurrected Jesus ascends to Heaven, a hundred and twenty disciples gather to settle the burning question of who will occupy the celestial throne initially promised to Judas Iscariot. Peter points out that Judas has fulfilled the Scriptures and has been rewarded with disembowelment and the everlasting disapproval of the righteous, and since the Saviour proclaimed that twelve thrones are waiting it would be a pity to let one go to waste. The disciples choose two candidates and cast lots to determine which of them shall inherit the property, having first petitioned the Father to guide their dice as He is apparently suffering from a temporary inability to inspire them directly. The winner, one Matthias, is so brilliant a choice that he is never mentioned again.

Peter begins by putting Judas posthumously in his place, invoking the Scriptures and then, rock-like, thinking better of it. If Judas betrayed Jesus according to the will of God, then he did not turn aside of his own accord, but was turned aside by the Father's grace. If Judas betrayed Jesus against the will of God, then the crucifixion, the Resurrection and the Ascension, which resulted from Judas' actions, are necessarily against the will of God also. Therefore, having admitted at the outset that Judas was acting in fulfilment of the Scriptures, Peter understandably denies this truth by stating that Judas turned aside from his ministry to go to his own place.

Being thoroughly schooled in the vindictive and arbitrary ways of their Father, none of those present asks why Jesus promised thrones to all twelve apostles when He and His Father must both have been aware of the Father's intention to have one apostle forfeit his place. With equally commendable prudence, the disciples also refrain from asking, in light of Judas' fate, what the Saviour's other promises might be worth.

Bit of a Thingy on the Home Front

After ten years as a price worth paying for some people's prosperity, homelessness has suddenly become a problem so urgent as to motivate an acolyte of the Reverend Blair. A former tsar in the Tony firmament has been hastily appointed to do something or other about rough sleeping, and has responded as England would expect, with a medley of pseudo-Churchillian rah-rah ("these are unusual times, so I’m asking for an unusual effort") and the bleeding obvious ("as you know, this is a public health emergency"). The rhetoric duly prioritised, a junior minister was delegated to the minor matter of doing the above-mentioned something or other, and responded by ordering all the local authorities in England to do something or other about the homeless, which is of course the sort of no-nonsense approach to getting things done which characterises the People's Haystack himself. Equally typical was the total lack of any indication as to how accommodation is to be provided or whether the spad at the Treasury will find room for this great work among his spreadsheets. Still, it's an encouraging sign that, while the Cummings administration may be floundering face-down in its ideological mud-puddle, it does have just enough foresight and regard for political tradition to try and splatter any future blame onto the local authorities.

Masked Efficiency

Even before the coronavirus concentrated their minds, it was fashionable among former NHS-bashers to reinvent themselves as champions of the NHS once they were safely out of office. The interregnum that followed Margaret Thatcher, whose introduction of the "internal market" was among the more blatant signals of the Conservatives' final solution to the public health problem, was a particularly egregious example. Still, even John Major's oracular whines about the Bullingdon Club may be rivalled by Jeremy C Hunt's attempts to reinvent himself as a champion of the nurses his administration forced into dependence on food banks, and the doctors on whom he declared war. Evidently seeing the pandemic as a chance to flaunt his charisma from the back-benches, Hunt called for better equipment for the frontline staff who, doubtless as a result of Hunt's cleansing influence, have conveniently given up their idle weekend murder habits and been re-born as heroes risking their lives to save others. Astoundingly enough, it now turns out that Hunt's régime blithely contributed to present shortages against the recommendations of its own advisers, who were probably nothing more than mere experts. When it was suggested that guidelines might be updated in line with, of all things, current evidence, Hunt's minions sniffed that "This work is not considered a priority at this time and will be deferred for consideration at a future time." Still, it is encouraging to see that Hunt, like his Cabinet colleagues among the Deputy Conservative Party, has been so much improved by not being in office; and it is to be hoped that the improvement will be allowed to continue for a long time to come.

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

Although deaths from the Peſtilence are numbered minimal in the conſidered Opinion of Her Majeſty's Government, it is reckoned by many that more Perſons are dying than the publick Record ſtates, owing to the economical Practice of recording only a ſmall Number among thoſe deaths which occur. This ſeems a fair Compromiſe between the immediate need to prevent Panick among the Rabble and the continuing Neceſsitie for the exceſs Population to be rapidly and efficiently exciſed from our great Britiſh Herd. The Archbiſhop of Canterbury hath expreſsed his ſatisfaction that the Buſineſs of recording Paſsage to the next World is not reduced to a mere Function of ſecular Scribes and Scriveners, which would tally Souls into Heaven as if counting out ſo many Beans.

A certain Mr Kamu hath ſayed to me, while diſporting himself in the Bloater & Blueſtocking Coffee-houſe, that the preſent Peſtilence could not be the Blacke Death, as that infirmity was ſpread by Fleas from Rattes, the ſaid Fleas having infected the Rattes to their Doom and then leapt from the bloated and twitching rodent Corſes on to unſuſpecting Humanity. He then ſpoke moſt fancifully of ſmall noiſome Bodies with which the Fleas corrupted the Blood and which thereby cauſed the Plague to ſpread.

I find this Theory moſt cumberſome and unworthy, and I have no knowledge of its approval by any Scientific or Medical Authority in Her Majeſty's Government, which continues ſtoutly to uphold the Doctrine that diſeaſes are spread by Foreigners with their dirty Habits and aſsorted culinary Perverſities. I ſuppose that it is poſsible English Blood in the Fourteenth Century was a leſs pure and Reſilient Concoction than during our Glorious Preſent-day; but Mr Kamu is by all accounts a French-ſpeaking Savage from a Turkiſh city in the Jungles of Northern Africa, and holds many ſtrange and ſuperſtitious ideas with which he hath doubleſs been infected thanks to the hideous Barbarities of Mohammedaniſm. I am reſolved to ſpeak to him further and gain Material towards a Denunciation to help me towards some elevated Station in the Government, which hath recently advertiſed its need for the ſervice of unpleaſant Eccentrics.

Our Precious NHS A Prey to Ruthless Opportunists

Extreme situations frequently lead people, and even Government ministers, to react with extreme countermeasures; and this in turn can place the ship of state on a slippery slope towards the precipice of extremism, while the champagne bottle of sensible moderation bounces fruitlessly off the hull. The coronavirus pandemic has caused the Minister for Profitable Healthcare to attempt some sort of show at being concerned about public health, and unfortunately there are those who would seek to utilise this extraordinary situation to their own fiendish foreign ends. Refugee doctors, against whom the Parliamentary Brexit Party and its little orange fags have spent a decade protecting the public, are urging that Her Majesty's Government accelerate the process of their accreditation as opportune essentials in the carbolic-washed wards of Albion. Doubtless the cunning devils were emboldened by the news that the virus has reached the very household of the Queen Gawblesser; although their meagre grasp of British culture has evidently not enabled them to penetrate the subtleties of just how expendable the Prince of Wales can be. Patriotic Britons will certainly react with unease at the potential for creeping encroachment upon their inalienable rights of summary deportation as guaranteed in Magna Carta.

Spread the Britishness

In the midst of any crisis, life's little continuities are always a comfort; and Transport for London has been commendably prompt in providing the city with a textbook triumph of British planning. Mildly concerned that the herd immunity thingy had not produced the anticipated foreigner-flooring results, Her Majesty's Government later advised, or commanded, or recommended, or in certain moods simply muttered, that under one or two circumstances, with exceptions, and taking into account the needs of the business community, certain non-essential plebs might perhaps consider not going to work, unless they really felt like it. The Secretary of State for Protfitable Healthcare was so concerned for the welfare of essential citizens that he placed an announcement behind a paywall in the Barclaygraph, hopefully to the fiscal improvement of all concerned. Transport for London mucked in by closing some stations and limiting services, whereupon those trains still running became packed with commuters whose regard for social distance was sadly scant compared with their lust for filthy lucre. Naturally, Her Majesty's Government has made no financial provision for the many workers whose jobs have been efficientised out of all security and all opportunity to build up any savings; it appears that, despite a decade of hints, such people still refuse to starve away quietly and cleanly. Adding to the problem was the attitude of NHS staff, who have suddenly metamorphosed into essential workers after ten years as parasites, idlers and weekend murderers, but who really should have known better than to travel on crowded underground trains instead of using chauffeured limousines the way responsible people do.

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

It is plain that the Divine Retribution upon Popiſhneſs continues moſt ſatisfactorily, with the blaſphemous unroadlike Waterways of Venice now so bereft of Gondoliers and Giocondottiers and their aſsociated Italianate Effluvia, that the very Beds of the canals are viſible from the Surface, which hath not occurred within living Memory and will greatly diſcombobulate the Curia. The beaſtlie French are alſo much inconvenienced, as the deſpotick and ruthleſs Government of that perfidious realm hath been driven to Meaſures of the most extreme variety, including much Bluſter againſt Engliſh Tourism. It is almoſt as good as the Warre.

An anonymous Source of impeccable Credentials hath informed me, that Her Majeſty's Government wiſhes not to teſt the Populace for the diſeaſe, for fear of incurring unneceſsarie Expenſe and cauſing a Panick among the Brokers. It hath been rumoured alſo that Her Majeſty's Government wiſhes to deploy Soldiers, for fear that the City Watch will be unable to control the Populace in the event of an Epidemick. It may be even better than the Warre.

Laſt evening the Bloater & Blueſtocking Coffee-Houſe was in conſiderable Uproar, owing to the lateſt medical advice, which implyes that Free Subjects of the Realm have no longer the Right to touch their owne Faces. There were ſeverall preſent who declared their Intent to go out upon the moment and touch the Faces of paſsers-by in the Street, and Mr Spollinger ſpent the reſt of the night placing his Hands againſt his owne Dewlaps with an air of patriotick Defiance.

The Father of Teeth

Text for today: I Bicuspid cxxxiii-cxlvii

The Father of Teeth had not stayed there very long, however, before rumours began to circulate about his private life, his diet and especially his civilities. Although he harmed no-one physically, his reassuring grins caused panic among the emotionally vulnerable; and even when he inserted his whitest and sharpest, and walked up and down the high street without severing a single jugular, the mood of the community was not significantly improved.

The children of the town heard the rumours and started waking up screaming at night, so their parents tried to cure them with tales that the Father of Teeth was supervising their behaviour from under the bed and would get them if they didn't settle down. This lullaby proved so effective that the children began having nightmares, which were so accurate and rich in detail that they finally burst from the children's heads and went about the town causing property damage and harming local business interests.

Nothing like this had ever happened before the Father of Teeth arrived, so one morning the parents formed a lynch mob and marched to the small yet sinister hovel in which the Father of Teeth had made his home because of its peaceable location and extensive subterranean amenities. Since their children's welfare was at stake, the parents carried flaming torches and placards with unflattering slogans, and the nightmares which had plagued the town during the hours of darkness were happy to mingle with the throng. Since most of them bore a passing resemblance to one or another of the parents, give or take a tentacle or two, they managed this quite easily.

When the throng reached the residence occupied by the Father of Teeth, and once a few preliminary stones had been hurled at the windowless walls, a delegation of the most righteous parents stepped up to the door. The biggest of them pounded the door with a fist, calling upon the Father of Teeth to come out and face the summary justice of the progenitorially offended.

Without protest the door swung open. The Father of Teeth stood before them; and when the anticipatory yells of the mob had been sufficiently diluted in uncertain silence, he said: "Some of you have progeny, and some of you are the progeny of that progeny, albeit not by the usual channels. I would advise the dreamy grandchildren to leave." And he gave his most pacifying grin.

At this all the nightmares, knowing what was good for them, dissolved into thin air; which left the mob rather smaller than before, and considerably more suspicious. Respectable citizens eyed each other, each wondering whether their neighbour was truly a fellow placard-wielder and practitioner of family values, or something more ethereal and sinister - something conjured up by their own dear offspring.

Later, of course, the town was entered by specialists in protective suits, and there began the protracted and hideous process of cleaning up the mess; but by then the Father of Teeth was long gone.

Swarming Hordes

Thanks to the climate emergency and the head-chopping House of Saud's continuing rampage in Yemen, locust swarms are increasing across the Arabian peninsula and eastern Africa. Climate change has produced an increase in cyclones, which in turn produce favourable breeding conditions for our little brown chums; meanwhile, the once central locust control organisation in Yemen has undergone a few efficiency savings because of the war. As the UK returns at last to its long-lost birthright of rationing and rah-rah, patriots will certainly be proud to know that the nation's staunch support for the head-chopping House of Saud has favoured the fecundity of a species well known for the Anglo-Saxon stoicism of its shopping habits.

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

A rumour is abroad, that Her Majeſty's Government is conſidering the cloſure of Taverns, Play-houſes and other places of publick Gathering. This is all to the good with regard to the general Populace, which hath a natural tendency to Idleneſs that will be much improved by ſeveral days cloiſtered with the familie on Bread and Gin and ſpent in pious faſting and Prayer for Deliverance.

The Publick hath been warned againſt ineſsential Travel to foreign parts, although the Deciding of what may be eſsential or no hath been left to the Conscience of the individual, as befits an enterpriſing and Proteſtant people. I have it from ſeverall Pamphleteers, who heard from anonymous ſources, that the cloſing of Taverns will also be left to the Judgement of the inn-keepers, in order that our great Inſurance Companyes may be protected againſt the Importunities of tradeſmen and purveyors to publick Vice. Indubitably due proviſion will be made for the better Claſse of Persons, so that ſuch vital publick Amenities as the Bloater & Blueſtocking Coffee-Houſe ſhall not perish from the earth.

Meanwhile the Prime Miniſter hath warned that many loved ones will be loſt to the plague. The proportion of Fatalities to Infected is believed to be about one in one-Hundred; which means, according to the beſt Calculations, that the Toll is like to include at leaſt five or ſix of the Prime Miniſter's Baſtards, aſsuming their Mothers and Governeſses are of an affectionate Nature.

Highly Skilled

Ministers welcome dynamic new citizen

A report into the Government's Windrush generational cleansing project, which is expected to adopt a critical tone towards a few honest mistakes that anyone could have made, was published today amid a flurry of tributes to the coronavirus.

Britain's Ministry for Wog Control has expressed its gratitude to the coronavirus for its unparalleled abilities and can-do attitude in the business of bad news interment.

"The coronavirus is Britain's most welcome immigrant," said one former prime minister and environmental hostility purveyor.

"The coronavirus did not come here to pay university fees or taxes. Britain will always be a home to hard workers whose minds have not been narrowed and warped by the infection of foreign ideologies."

"The coronavirus has a far more get-go attitude of can-do dynamism than my own parents, who I would have deported without hesitation" said the present secretary of state for wog control, whose parents sneaked into the country when it was legal under international law.

Publication of the report could have drawn several minutes of unwelcome media attention, had not the coronavirus appeared in time to focus the public's mind on shopping.

Once the virus had arrived, a wave of contradictory, incoherent and dismissive Government announcements brought on a virulent outbreak of Anglo-Saxon stoicism which continues to ravage supermarket shelves across the country.

A Downing Street spokesbeing said that the coronavirus could marry the Prime Minister's daughter, "whatever her name is," and would shortly be offered the freedom of the city of London, which would grant it the inalienable right to graze its sheep on the garden bridge without tax or toll.

The Old Feudal Spirit

We are used to Her Majesty's Government invoking Churchillian rah-rah at any and every opportunity; and of course the People's Haystack is a nearly ideal modern analogue for the magniloquent race-baiter whose record of sanguinary incompetence stretched from Gallipoli through Norway and Dieppe to the year-long dither and delay over the Second Front. Since germ sounds a bit like German, the coronavirus pandemic has brought a rhetorical escalation of the kind hardly seen since the last time Her Majesty's Government started to thqueam and thqueam and thqueam at the beastly Euro-wogs. Of course this is not to deny certain wartime parallels, notably the Government's initial blithe inaction at the prospect of large civilian casualties and the shaking of assorted magic money trees to provide calming injections of cash for panicky profiteers. The latest example is slightly foreign, but still instructive: in 1914 Tsar Nicholas II, a spineless nincompoop whose policy at any given moment was whatever someone else had just advised him, had a happy inspiration. To keep his troublesome social inferiors from inconveniencing him with their vulgar noises about not wishing to starve, he would send them off to war against the German Empire, which was merely the strongest and most modern military state in Europe and possibly the world. Nicholas, by contrast, could call upon God and the Russian people, which together brought him a quasi-mediaeval rabble of some fifteen million men, some of whom had to share rifles. Evidently the People's Haystack, whose Ottoman ancestors famously gave Churchill's brave boys that nasty kick in the Dardanelles, is relying on a similar strategy; and we can only hope that it meets with appropriate success.

Journal of the Plague Year

continued, by a Gentleman

There is News that the Mediterranean Ports are being cloſed on account of the Peſtilence, and accordingly much Worrie and Biting of Nayles for feare of the effect on Buſineſs, rather than rejoycing in the Lord's just Retribution againſt the forces of Popery. On Sunday juſt gone the Biſhop ſpoke moſt profoundly on the wages of Sin, noting the Miraculous Eaſe with which the plague hath moved between the Dæmoniack Hordes of the Far Eaſt and the Popiſh Beſtialities of the Mediterranean. Alas that ſo few now recall the Depredations of Spayne during the Age of Navigation, and the Unſpeakable Horrors inflicted by the Roman Empire upon Good Queen Boadicea. If you aſk me it ſerves them right.

Many in theſe days are wont to quote the Prime Miniſter's moſt memorable and ſtateſmanlike ſpeech of onlie a few months ago, to the effect that given the choyce of Buſineſs or Sovereigntie, then to ſexual Intercourſe with Buſineſs. It is regrettable to report that numerous Malcontents are now abroad who remember theſe noble Words out of Context, forgetting the veritable Teares of Joy which they occasioned upon their Pronouncement.

Austerity Put to Flight

In the country whose boffins brought the world the Spitfire, the Lancaster and the R-101, the buccaneering forces of airborne enterprise are demanding intervention from their Stalinist oppressors. Global entrepreneurs are squealing to be nationalised, while major polluters have ordered a £7,000-million bung from the British taxpayer. Of course, there is no question of trying to get something for nothing: plans are afoot to deprive people of their livelihoods, the better to safeguard deserving travellers; although more liberal owners may be satisfied with imposing a month or two of unpaid leave. Having spent all of six weeks wallowing in its new-found impotence at Brussels and Strasbourg, Her Majesty's Government responded by boasting about its influence on the European Commission.

Bad Theology

Text for today: I Samuel 2 xxv, 4 x-xviii, 6 i-v

The priest Eli has two corrupt sons. He remonstrates with them, but they refuse to listen because God wants to kill them. In order to accomplish this, God empowers the Philistines to kill thirty thousand Israelite soldiers in battle and to capture the ark of the Covenant. Eli's sons are among the casualties, and when the old priest hears the news he falls over in a faint and breaks his neck.

As with God's deliberate hardening of Pharaoh's heart in order to justify His murderous collective punishment of the Egyptian people, all possibility of repentance and mercy is denied; not by the thoughts or actions of men, but by God's will alone. In this case, God turns the screw still further by afflicting not an enemy of the Israelites but a priestly family. Eli has served God for forty years and has taught the young Samuel, who will become one of the greatest prophets. Having first carefully ensured that Eli's sons have no chance at redeeming themselves. God rewards him by causing the deaths of all three men, cursing their family and ensuring the bloody humiliation of the entire Israelite people. Rather than kill the powerless old man Himself, God courageously has the fatal news brought to him by a soldier of the defeated army, who has presumably been spared for that righteous purpose.

Having caused the Philistines to capture the ark of the Covenant, God punishes them in turn for being effective instruments of His will. Such is His mercy and justice that He afflicts them with tumors for seven months until the ark is returned to the master race.

Journal of the Plague Year

by a Gentleman

It is ſayed that a great Peſtilence hath broken out among the Heathen, in the Province or Diſtrict or City or Town or Hamlet or Perſon of Woo-Han in China, which is doubtleſs a place of moſt outlandiſh Cuſtom and Diet.

It is ſayed among the Common Folk that the Peſtilence hath reſulted from an unhealthy Diet compriſing Battes and wild Armadilloes with Rice ſeveral times a day. Of the cleanlineſse of wild Armadilloes I have no reliable information, but I am informed by a gentleman at the Bloater & Blueſtocking Coffee-houſe that a Batte properly plucked and garniſhed with ſalted Prunes will furniſh an excellent Repaſt and cleanſe the Palate and the Bowels moſt merrily and with conſiderable Diſpatche.

The Biſhop maintaineth however that the Plague erupted as a Retribution upon the infidels for their hideous Idolatries, wherein it is proclaimed that a ſtone Monkey once journeyed to the Indies in company with a Fiſh, an Hogge and one of their Devil-worſhipping Prieſtes. This is undoubtedlie ſome corrupt and diſtorted ſlant upon the true Word as preached by the Miſsionaries, as is ſhowne by the perſiſting preſence of the Fiſh, the five Loaves and the other Fiſh having each been ſubjected to a cunning and inſidious tranſmogrification.

There is much talk of the Blacke Death which is likewiſe ſayed to have proceeded from the depths of China, where the infidel god Zen teacheth the way of Apathie and Reſignation, and which killed a third portion of the Populace of Europe, where the true God teacheth the way of Reſignation and Proſperitie.

Still it ſeemeth moſte unlike that the Woo-Han plague ſhould reach theſe Shores, though Woo-Han whether a Peaſant or a Province is doubtleſs home to every ſort of horrid ſtench and Miaſma, as are all foreign Places and many in England and most of the ſervants and Neighbours.

Prison Still Works

Unelected bureaucrats and trendy do-gooders at the Prison Inspectorate continue to criticise and carp at the offender warehousing industry, despite ever more profound levels of managerial buccaneering. Having published a report last year warning of worsening conditions at HMP Pentonville, the inspectorate has now, with typically tedious lack of imaginative innovativity, made further complaints along the same lines. Inmates are shut away for most of the time with nothing to do, without lighting or hot water; few environments could be a better preparation for the rigours of homelessness, the gig economy and Universal Credit, yet the inspectorate implies that the offender warehousing industry should somehow concern itself with maintaining human dignity. Violence and drug use are on the rise, and self-harm is a daily occurrence; yet when the problem self-resolves as suicide the inspectorate complains that the management's response is inadequate and lacklustre. It says much for the decline in moral standards that nothing will satisfy the unnatural lusts of the Prison Inspectorate short of abolishing the all-important punishment component and giving ordinary inmates the same soft option as large-scale fraudsters, tax dodgers, corporate mass murderers and other wealth creators.

Faith Within Reason

Since God in His infinite mercy and wisdom has seen fit to send among us His servant the coronavirus, and since He has presumably known the nature, progress and consequences of the disease since at least the beginning of time, it is natural that the pious should be shouting at Him to think again. By way of a spiritual push, a group of Orthodox believers has attempted a holy procession of automobiles through the city of Lipetsk in Russia; but unfortunately the local authorities refused permission for the parade to go ahead. It appears they were motivated by the same profane and materialistic public health considerations as the Orthodox church's other ideological enemies at Lourdes; and despite the lives and suffering at stake the Holy Royal Martyrs, who presumably worship not only the Deity but also the equally efficient and compassionate régime of the tsars, obeyed the secular arm of Lipetsk with surpassing meekness.

Puppy Love

Rah rah for the Treasury spad!
A charmingly suited young lad,
So youthful, so winning;
Such bragging and grinning
And blather and blah to be had!

Rah rah for the chancellor child
Who held all the toddlers beguiled
With bungs to keep healthy
And happy the wealthy,
And help them go running hog-wild!

Britons, rest content with your lot!
We've ditched the austerity rot!
Our chums get their loads:
The greens get more roads:
Rah rah for the Dom's fiscal tot!

Sir Winston de Pfeffel Shakespeare

Fit for Heroes

This year's summer and autumn will of course be blitzed with the droning dead-cat hum and Stuka screech of rah-rah for the eightieth anniversary of the Battle of Britain, in which an obliging few and some immigrants aided Sir Winston Boris de Pfeffel Churchill in his glorious victory over Hugh Dowding. Nevertheless, it appears that certain people have again failed to learn one of history's most persistent lessons. It may be all very well to fight fire with fire, to battle climate change by exacerbating climate change and to moderate witch-hunts with mature debate; but utilising the wog to fight against the wog is almost always asking for trouble. New Labour discovered this during the aftermath to the glorious crusade in Iraq, when glamorous yet controversial rearguard actions were fought against giving asylum to Iraqis who had helped British forces, and against allowing Gurkha veterans to settle in the UK. Now military veterans from all over the Commonwealth seem to think that just because they have helped Britain with its dirty work they have the right to expect some sort of kickback from Her Majesty's Government. This is the sort of moral dilemma that gnaws at every Conservative heart: does collaboration in the act of wog-bombing help to dilute the wogginess of the obliging wog? Such is the emotional resonance of the issue that at least one member of the Parliamentary Brexit Party has already argued that those who have "fought to defend" the white man's islands should be looked at hard, and perhaps allowed to pay taxes, provided they don't try to bring all their wives and children and mothers along to live it up on Universal Credit.

First They Came for the Neo-Nazis

Connoisseurs of fiscal comedy will forever prize the response to the crash of 2008, when the Bullingdon Club, led by its glistening puce Head Boy and abetted by its little orange fags, turned a modest recovery into a three-year depression by, among other things, cutting the police to the tune of some twenty thousand personnel. It remains to be seen whether the Conservatives will respond to the present crash by cutting further or by simply continuing not to bother making up the shortfall; but in the meantime at least two police forces have demonstrated their own robust sense of humour by stealthily undermining the Prevent programme. Originally intended as a low-level denunciation harvester with clip-on Muslim-baiting, and hence as a basic component in the Ministry for Wog Control's transformation of landlords, employers and public servants into thought police and migrant-smellers pursuivants, Prevent has been hijacked by mischievous elements who seem to regard it as an excuse to treat the political mainstream as some sort of troublesome radicals. Even ministerial hints that people may be radicalised by the clannish or tribal influence of a partner or close family member, rather than by the people's will as manifested through the lynch-mob glamour of the Home Office, have not sufficed to control these blithe spirits, whose absorption of history's austere and unforgiving lessons clearly leaves much to be desired. If people who hold the opinions of Lord Rothermere, Winston Churchill and Rupert Murdoch are to be tarred with the racist brush, just imagine where that might leave the legitimate and understandable centre-ground of Britain's present pragmatic politics.

The Father of Teeth

Text for today: I Canines lviii-lxi

Arguably as a direct result, however, the Father of Teeth wandered into an austere district and down a cheerless street, where he came upon a stern temple staffed by unadorned priests and crowned with disapproving gargoyles. From every corner echoed noises of whips on flesh and orgiastic yelps, but even these failed to make the place very inviting.

A priest guided the Father of Teeth to a bare chamber with undecorated walls and uncurtained windows and an unbrightened ceiling and an uncarpeted floor on which there was an ancient-looking stain. Counselling the Father of Teeth that his soul would benefit by the display, the priest opened an unfestooned cupboard and brought forth an uncompromising whip with seven cords, each terminating in a spiny metal incentiviser. With this the priest proceeded to belabour the stain on the floor, which responded to its chastisement with creditable equanimity.

After a few minutes the priest paused, wiping his brow with a sandpaper handkerchief and panting post-orgasmically. He urged the Father of Teeth to confess his spiritual improvement, but the Father of Teeth responded only with a hint that he knew more efficient ways to remove stains from floors.

"Remove the stain!" exclaimed the priest. "What blasphemy is this? Do you not know that this stain constitutes the worldly remains of our blessed saint, whose mortification of her flesh was so thorough that she dissolved at last into that puddle of virtue of which this stain constitutes the sole and holy remnant?"

Kneeling, the Father of Teeth poked at the stain with a hideous forefinger and then reverently rubbed the forefinger across several of his more gruesome gums. "I fear you are deceived," he said; "this stain's organic content is quite negligible."
"Negligible?" gibbered the priest.
"It seems to be mostly mineral water," said the Father of Teeth, "with trace elements of radioactive sewage from ancient times. The Creator of the universe has presumably placed an underground spring somewhere beneath the foundations of this temple, for reasons best known to Himself." The priest had begun to twitch, and the Father of Teeth found himself abruptly needed elsewhere.

Nevertheless, decades later when he returned to the stern temple in the cheerless street of the austere district, he found that the saint's sacred and tastefully blood-spattered image had miraculously imprinted itself upon the labels of bottles filled with restorative drinking water, which were consumed throughout the city though sold exclusively in the temple precincts. The water was said to cure all pains and morbidities, provided only that the drinker maintained the requisite degree of faith; and those who blasphemed the saint's memory by failing to recover were invited to purify themselves by submitting to the priest with the whip, and sacrificing a small portion of their own flesh to feed the stain's ever-growing appetite for meat.

Undesirably Extreme

Squeals of moral indignation continue to echo around the corridors of enlightenment at Westminster, thanks to the cancellation of an event at Oxford University featuring Amber Rudd. The invitation to the former Minister for Wog Disposal and sometime advocate of blacklisting for companies that employ foreigners was part of the build-up to International Women's Day, as an encouragement to young women who dream of entering moderate and acceptable politics and who are prepared to cultivate the necessary qualities of thuggish incompetence (Theresa May), bullying corruption (Priti Patel), Tupperware-skulled stupidity (Andrea Leadsom) and race-baiting mendacity (Amber Rudd). However, the event was cancelled because of some uncharitable students whose feminism bordered on the militant, non-corporate variety which is always in danger of going too far and failing to take account of legitimate and understandable concerns. The stupid boy in charge of education has gone so far as to proclaim that, if universities don't do more to protect the free speech of people who agree with him, the Government will intervene; perhaps with the result of enabling the likes of Amber Rudd to promulgate their whiny belligerence via (to take a random possibility) national broadcast media and the free, fearless and cantankerous Press. Certainly, leading someone to believe their presence is legitimate, only to eject them unceremoniously at short notice, appears a rather unjust way to treat a member of the master race.

Oven-Ready Goat, With Sauce

Since the People's Haystack stated, on entering into his manifest destiny, that he had a "clear plan" for social care, few will be surprised that the People's Haystack in fact has no plan at all. Those plans which do exist in forms other than opportunistic burble, such as the expulsion of yet more migrant hordes and all the black Britons he can get away with, are unlikely to be very effective at repairing the decade of gleeful vandalism which the Bullingdon Club and their little orange fags have wreaked upon the social care system. Indeed, mere local authorities have taken it upon themselves to warn that continually removing cash from a thingy will tend to make for a situation whereby that thingy may eventually run short of cash, although how far these fiscal subtleties are comprehended at Westminster remains as yet unclear. Nevertheless, a rare attack of planning has caused the People's Haystack and his Minister for Profitable Healthcare to invite parliamentary expenses claimants to submit their own suggestions, thereby ensuring the availability of somewhere to deflect the blame for whatever fiasco ensues.

Hot Portfolios, Dropping Pennies

After the warmest European winter on record, in which Russia and Sweden had to import snow for sporting events and even the mainland suffered flooding, an influential group of investors has given all UK-listed companies a further three years to consider how they will claim to be coping with the climate crisis. As the likely effects of global heating have been known for some thirty years, and the response so far has been mostly buck-passing with a thin coat of green-washing, it is arguable that the Investment Association has been a little slow on the uptake. Certainly no investor should be expected to take an interest in those profits which, besides being inadequately monitored, are actively accelerating the crisis. To its credit, however, the group has recognised that the possible collapse of civilisation and extinction of the species may ultimately hit savers' pockets if not subject to appropriate fiscal supervision.

Healthy Isolation

Unelected bureaucrats at the World Health Organisation have been caught disparaging the profit motive, bringing market forces into disrepute, and attempting to disrupt the stated priorities of Her Majesty's Government. A foreigner with a funny name has accused entrepreneurs of worsening the coronavirus threat by their buccaneering efforts, and has even implied that governments should intervene to protect, of all things, health workers. Such outdated and inefficient measures may be good enough for the Heathen Chinee, the perfidious French and other lesser breeds; but they will scarcely suffice for the Recrudescent Imperium of Westminster, the Falkland Islands and Possibly Gibraltar, where the national religion has long since anathematised the idea that governments should take some sort of interest in the health of their citizens. Pluck, gumption, enterprise and tax cuts will undoubtedly defend us from the plague; at least until the day Her Majesty's Government is satisfied that the plague has the potential to kill people who really matter.

Clean Hands

With a degree of fiendishness worthy of the Heathen Chinee themselves, mere experts have sought to hijack the coronavirus in pursuit of their sinister communistic agenda. Both Her Majesty's Government and its American ally have been warned that lack of statutory sick pay will tend to bring infected workers into contact with non-infected ones, thereby putting the latter at risk of decreased productivity. It remains as yet unclear whether either government accepts the germ theory of infection, an undemocratically scientific construct which carries the dangerous implication that pandemics may not always be preventable through pluck, patriotic zeal and the profit motive alone. Nevertheless, a spokesbeing at the Department for Workfare and Privation was proud and happy to clarify that anyone not entitled to Britain's more or less pitiful rates of statutory sick pay can always telephone, or consult their Idleness Police supervisor, for advice on how to claim a lesser amount.

A Timely Insertion

Oh gosh! How to keep Britain blue,
Maintaining the breed that is true?
When England's elect
Stand throbbing erect,
The Johnsons will know what to do!

Oh crikey! We have to defuse
This thingy that causes bad news!
It's time to attack!
All experts we'll sack,
And knock them all out of their pews!

Oh golly! How frightfully rough!
Who could have imagined such stuff?
For enemies showing,
We've made tougher going -
But they've started going all tough!

Oh cripes! All the headlines are bad!
They think I'm a terrible cad!
I'll focus my Cummings
To deepen my plumbings
And knock up a healthy young spad!

William Boris de Pfeffel Shakespeare

Bad Theology

Text for today: I Kings 17

God sends a drought and orders his henchman Elijah to live by a brook east of the Jordan; but although God dispatches ravens with bread and meat, the brook dries up. God then sends Elijah to a safe house where a widow will feed him. The widow and her son are on the point of starvation; God magically replenishes their supplies of oil and flour, but slaughters the boy in a moment of inattention and has to be reminded that the woman is serving His own interests.

Several Old Testament patriarchs and prophets are on record as disputing with God. Abraham bargained with Him over Sodom and Gomorrah, although since God must have known all along what would happen in the end, it is arguable that Abraham, as with Isaac and the ram, was simply the butt of another sadistic practical joke. On another occasion, Moses set an example for priestly castes everywhere by dissuading God from breaking His covenant with the Hebrews and destroying them over the golden calf. In this case Elijah rebukes God for His impoliteness in killing off the son of the woman who has shown him hospitality, and God relents after being asked only three times. Elijah also stretches himself over the child: a custom which persists in slightly different form among certain clergymen today, though not always as a means of re-animating the dead.

It cannot be denied that God emerges from the episode looking buffoonishly inefficient and absent-minded: He can replenish supplies and marshal ravens as waiters, but cannot keep a brook running or prevent His servant's child dropping dead. When the boy is restored to life, his mother says that the word of the Lord in Elijah's mouth is truth: a shrewd and telling formulation, as it implies that words in other mouths may be no less the Lord's for being false.