Damp Decisions, Soggy Solutions

His Majesty's Government is shocked, shocked, and shocked again that moisture provision profiteers are using salary hikes as a way around the ban on bonus hikes, despite displaying no particular inclination to clean up their act before doing so. Thames Water has repurposed part of its emergency debt package to pamper a newly recruited fat cat, and the Department for Environmental Faeces and Rubbish Acceptance duly dripped out a spokesbeing to effluviate upon the unacceptability of the trick. Such master-strokes of cunning being self-evidently beyond the capacity of ministers to predict or prevent, His Majesty's Government is yet again resolved to spare no effort in accepting the unacceptable, while awaiting the industry watchdog's opinion on the likely future impact of its trademark hapless whines and mouldering, toothless gums.

In Prudent Mood

Everything has its price, and even a pretext for sacking people in large numbers may occasionally display some small operational disadvantage. According to a major rating agency, the gains made by banks in the rush to infoslop submersion may potentially be undermined by losses from outages, price gouging, and damaged consumer confidence. The agency went so far as to point out the perils of relying too much on a small number of firms, for all the world as if capitalist commerce had some sort of business with rational competition on a level playing field. Fortunately, an infallible safeguard is at hand in the form of substantial investment, which translates into Oldspeak as another bung from the taxpayer when things go wrong.

That's the Boy

It says much for American resourcefulness that the nation has so often managed to harness nominative determinism in the service of administrative efficiency. Connoisseurs still remember the appointment of an official spokesbeing named Larry Speakes in deference to the mental capacities of Ronald Reagan, although the system was not noticeably utilised under the Bush chimpanzee in deference to that worthy's command of the English language. Now that the chief executive is a hollow orange receptacle controlled by the radioactive defecations of a rabid mutant head-tribble, the task of running the country has naturally fallen upon sleazy upstarts and squalling manbabies; hence the perfect choice of one David Brat as ambassador to Australia. Not only is he a fan of Ayn Rand who preached that capitalism and Christianity should drop the pretence of not being shacked up together, but his surname is about as adult and diplomatic as any Trumpsterite could wish; and also, for the Putin conspiracy theorists, happens to be Russian for brother. His first name, meanwhile, is that of a notorious adulterer elevated to his throne by the arbitrary favour of a whimsical super-tyrant, who subsequently caused the realm to be divided and conquered on the king's account. No wonder they took eighteen months to appoint him: so absolute a match between form and function is no simple matter to find.

Traditional Methods

While occasionally upending ancient custom, new technology still has a way of reflecting fundamental human values. Just as the industrial revolution replaced agricultural serfdom with the mechanised variety, so the information revolution has facilitated paranoia, political reaction and proud ignorance; and the Danish government has evidently resolved upon fighting fire with fire. Among other indignities such as having their classroom essay-writing closely monitored, teenage school pupils will be required to sit viva voce examinations for assignments produced at home. As this process will naturally favour glib and fluent speakers, such measures may well usher in yet another glorious phase in the present conquest of the world by demagogues and salesbeings.

Not All Talk is Cheap

When everyone else is either a flunkey or a foe, there is no particular reason for spending good money on diplomacy; and the Trumpster and his head-tribble are following up recent economies at the State Department by closing consulates and macerating missions across five countries and three continents. Their Imperial Majesties' Loyal Opposition duly objected on the grounds that American isolationism may cause the less emotionally stable races to fall prey to the subtle suasions and insidious inveiglings of the Heathen Chinee; but perish the thought that yellow fever should be the only patriotic deterrent. Ever mindful of fundamental republican and democratic values, the critics also carped at the financial savings, which are unlikely to be large enough for translation into appropriate political rewards.

Borderline Retarded

It seems the Trumpster and his head-tribble have finally taken the hint as to the unlikelihood of their image being graven into Mount Rushmore during the foreseeable news cycle, and have instead placed their hopes of a rock-ribbed legacy in the ongoing demolition of the White House and the construction of the Great Wetback Wall. In keeping with the values of Trumpsterdom, contractors are soaking up the local water supplies without legal permission and apparently without much idea of what they're doing; although the aridity of the landscape has thus far prevented their achieving the algae-crusted ineptitude of certain greenhorns elsewhere in the realm. Alas, local malcontents have become so un-American in their priorities as to value the region's scant available water more as a relief from drought than as an ingredient in making concrete.

What it Says on the Tin

I yield to nobody in my appreciation of nominative determinism, but even the best things in life can arguably be carried too far; as witness the fact that one of the lesser parliamentary appendages of the Farage Falange has selected a certain Joshua Bonehill-Paine as its local election candidate. A sometime "nationalist, fascist, theorist and supporter of white rights," the honourable gentleman has now been morally reformed and restored, and runs a satirical online account which has cast a favourable light upon Kemi Badenoch. Self-evidently it would be difficult to get more satirical than that; but the convert's name - his real name, apparently - gives its all in the attempt. His surname's first barrel resounds with the electoral graveyard, while its second evokes both the standard Conservative solution for social ills and the standard somatic response to the party's current campaigning prowess. His middle names, Mark and John, evoke two of the Gospellers, whose factual scrupulosity rivals that of almost any modern politician; his first name is shared with the génocidaire of Canaan, as well as with his illustrious New Testament counterpart who consigned all but His own followers to the eternal fire. Even a portfolio full of "Home Office counter-extremism certificates" seems rather a minor credential compared to a monicker like that.

Will This Land Never Be Clean?

Never content to rest on its lily-white laurels, the Ministry for Wog Control has been busily dispatching letters to citizens of the Strasbrussels threat, informing them that their residency rights are all a ghastly mistake. Hard-working scions of the master race, abetted no doubt by their American infoslop robocolleagues, are apparently sending up to a hundred missives a month, informing the Euro-wog infiltrators that paying tax in the nation of the Farage Falange and its panderers may be too exquisite a privilege for the likes of them. Since the Ministry's conscience is as clear as ever, full disclosure as to the number of looming expulsions has not been forthcoming; but doubtless all is as moderately fair and above board as ome could sensibly expect. Even so, certain subverters of the people's will are carping that this latest purge may violate the withdrawal agreement, which contains a provision that the mainland should not cleanse itself of beastly Euro-wogs except where such measures are, if you please, genuinely proportionate. If genuineness or proportionality had any place in the immigration debate, let alone in its obligate parasite the Brexit debate, somebody would surely have noticed by now.

Swift Justice

Lawyers for the circumvention of law on behalf of the Trumpster and his head-tribble have requested the dismissal of their own case over the alleged vandalism of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool. The administration had filed charges against a retired Olympic athlete on the grounds that he did wilfully and with malice aforethought place his hand in the water and sabotage the lining, thereby causing algae to bloom and turning the surface from royal blue to Lincoln green. Someone has belatedly discovered that everybody was frightfully busy at the time, booking cage fighters to dignify the White House's Independence Day celebrations, so that the charges were filed in a bit of a rush. It is a tribute to the leadership of the Trumpster and his head-tribble that their administration's customary level-headedness and respect for due process have been reasserted before any missiles were fired.

We're All In It Together

Suffolk may be going up in smoke, but a bracing Britishness continues to characterise the attitude of our great nation's moisture provision profiteers in applying the rules for drought management. While hosepipe bans and paddling prohibitions are in force for the little people and their offspring, golf courses and private school playing fields continue to be healthily besprinkled; although the school in question has hastened to reassure that only the sports pitches are being watered. Such concessions to modern Socialism aside, the fact that the pitches will not be in use until September efficiently rubs in the timeless moral lesson about the difference between real people who own private grounds and the rabble who use public parks.