Just Rewards

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that capitalism's beasts of burden have only one valid reason for objecting to the policies of their drivers and owners; namely that the policies are inadequately propagandised. Taking to heart the warnings of Wideboy Wesley Streeting, who recently advised Team Starmer to improve its sales patter, the Investment Association has warned against awarding large executive pay hikes without giving an adequate excuse. The standard pretext at the moment is "benchmarking," whereby adding the extra zeroes to the boardroom incentive is deemed necessary to protect bosses from the moral burden of turning themselves into economic migrants. Team Starmer's own use of a magical boilerplate tagline, viz. "pending approval by the Farage Falange demographic," has arguably not quite achieved the desired results; and the IA has advised that companies too should deign to explain themselves a bit further now and then, if only to keep the shareholders from feeling as if they're being treated like mere taxpayers.

Political Economy

Since Russia's assault on Ukraine remains a model of humane restraint compared with the Righteous State's reconstruction of Gaza, it's natural enough that Britain and the EU should come over all legalistic about freezing Russian assets. Predictably, Russia has responded with threats of retaliation through the courts, on top of its current terror tactics of shining bright lights at easily distracted British military pilots. Were the concept not so outlandish, one might almost imagine that Tsar Vladimir and his court believe the law should be adjusted for the convenience of those who wish to break it.

One Does Not Neglect a Mansion in Order to Sweep a Hovel

As noted by your correspondent last month, there exist certain environmental catastrophes which are so massive and so severe, and so impudent in afflicting the nice people, that they may on occasion drive even a Conservative parliamentary expenses claimant into paroxysms of virtuous wrath. Thus the vast unauthorised waste dump in Oxfordshire is to be cleared at the taxpayer's expense, while leaving less refined populations in full possession of similar amenities. No action, let alone funding, will be forthcoming from His Majesty's Government; although in compensation we are promised some New Year resolutions which will no doubt prove as durable as most. Meanwhile the Environment Agency is pledged to make "efficiencies in its operations," which usually translates into Oldspeak as sacking people and contracting out to either the cheapest option or the option best equipped to furnish the appropriate kickbacks; so there still remains the possibility that the Oxfordshire clean-up will be down to approximately the same standards as the provinces have come to expect.

Won't Someone Please Invoke Magna Carta?

Despite the fact that the House of Lords has long been a blatant sinecure farm whereby governments reward their donors, quieten their catamites, and ensure that their legislation is scrutinised by the right sort of people; and despite the upper chamber's insistence that Team Starmer's dilute employment rights bill needs watering down even further, and that suicide should continue to be facilitated only by induced hopelessness and shrugs of over-diagnosis - despite all this, there seems lately to be a whiff of possibility that the House may risk appearing somehow undemocratic. Yet worse, there are rumours of the Lords being thought unconstitutional as well, presumably because the nation's nonexistent constitution grants the electorate not a scintilla of influence over which ermine-clad buffoons infest the maundering-chamber or simply sit back and wait for the taxpayer-funded benefits to flow in. Alas, since meaningful constitutional reform would be no more moderate or sensible than nationalising the water supply or paying for a functional justice system, Team Starmer has little alternative but to whine about the unfairness of it all.

Not Quite British Enough

Britain's world-beating Neanderthals were making and controlling fire some eight times further back than previously thought. A site in Sussex shows evidence of fire being made by a palaeolithic culture some hundreds of thousands of years before the ancestors of Homo sapiens ipsedixit left Africa to subject the Neanderthals to their Great Replacement. One of the archaeological team was careful to guess that our own species would not have fallen behind in the technological race; doubtless because the Neanderthals are thought to have contented themselves with food-sharing, storytelling and other social interactions, rather than with more evolved pastimes such as warfare and witch-hunts.

Oh, the Ingratitude

You starve them and torture and kill them,
With love of true freedom to fill them -
Yet when you're viceroy,
They share not your joy
But whine that the prospect won't thrill them!

You smarm and connive and canoodle,
And leg-hump like any good poodle -
Yet Master is bold
And dares to withhold
Your doggy-bag full of the boodle!

Anthony Fitzgeorge Butcher

Whom God Hath Made Infertile

It seems that certain American military personnel (the more expendable ones, no doubt) may have to forgo the privilege of breeding new little soldiers for freedom. Healthcare provision for members of the US military on active duty will not include IVF treatment, because of an unacceptable risk of harm to the great American foetus. Being a coathanger fan for whom embryos are people even if women are not, the speaker of the House of Representatives has done some back-street dealing to get the provision removed from the latest War Department legislation. It remains as yet unclear what the reaction will be from the Trumpster and his head-tribble, who had pledged to ensure access to IVF on the grounds that American democracy can never have too many unsocialised inarticulate screamers.

Egypt Wasn't Swamped

As the nation approaches the orgasm stage in that three-month orgy of sales-talk, saccharine and sanctimony which is the Season of Feastmas, the annual copyright war has broken out over who really owns the Baby Jesus. The Home Secretary's fellow patriot, the Reverend Tommyrot Yaxleyson, is urging that Christ be put back into Christmas (I should have thought the clue was in the name, but literalism can be a dangerous thing); while the Church of England is planning a poster campaign implying that the Saviour might have had some sort of soft spot for goats as well as sheep. One bishop even had the gall to invoke the flight into Egypt, which succeeded because the parents of Baby Jesus had friends in high places and which involved leaving numerous other infants to be massacred while the Father sat twiddling His omnipotent thumbs. It's difficult to see what reason to change their views the Reverend Tommyrot Yaxleyson or his flock might find in that compassionate display.

Torrid Tower Tour Terror

Just as Palestinian independence is a laudable enough goal provided it serves the interests of the Righteous State and its backers, so redistribution of wealth can be a harmless enough policy provided it enriches the right sort of people. Alas, such nuance is lost upon those who weaponise apple crumble in the service of their treasonous schemes to undermine the nation's heritage. A protest group has staged a crumble-related incident at the Tower of London, assaulting some hefty Ruritanian headgear and criminally damaging the tourist industry in the name of taxing the rich. Fortunately the Crown Jewels were unharmed, thanks to a borderline un-British degree of foresight in rendering them resistant to lower-class stodge. Nevertheless, the police having rather loosely categorised the missile as food, it is to be expected that His Majesty's Government will take steps to proscribe any desserts with similar terroristic potential.

Beasts of England

These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink.
Emmanuel Goldstein

Streets named after bird species are proliferating despite the actual populations having been in precipitous decline for half a century; while use of the word meadow in street names has increased even as meadows in vulgar actuality have almost disappeared. As a nation that sides with the underdog, Britain rewards the rich and bashes refugees; as a nation that loves the NHS, Britain votes for tax-cutters and staff-deporters; and as the nation that won the war against fascism, Britain rallies to the Farage Falange. Few things could be more natural than that, as a nation of nature-lovers, Britain should pay nominative tribute to its wildlife while letting mere creatures die out.