Honourable Intentions Gone Astray

Since 1959, Cuba has famously posed a looming existential threat to the United States arguably in excess of the threats variously posed by Iran, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Nicaragua and a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan. So grave was the danger at one point that the sainted John F Kennedy attempted an invasion, which backfired and left to subsequent administrations from both wings of the Republicrat Demoblican Party the task of punishing the island for its unsympathetic attitude towards US interests in the region.

A mere six and a half decades on, with the Trumpster and his head-tribble in China, thirty-odd members of Congress feel safe enough to petition their frères et semblables to the effect that the current escalation goes too far. Extra sanctions against the Cuban population, and threats of military intervention to remove the government, are denounced on the grounds that they constitute a potential cause of migrants; while the use of Guantánamo Bay as a beaner warehouse is "not a response to migration - it is an attempt to contain the consequences of the exact policies that are driving it." If nothing else, the assertion that one does not respond to a policy by attempting to deal with its consequences should have some appeal for native speakers of Trumpsterian English.

Criminal Inflation

Judicial Britishness has set another example for the lesser breeds in the case of four Palestine Action protesters convicted of criminal damage to Israeli government property. Before the organisation had been proscribed, the judge in the case determined that their offence included a terrorist connection, apparently on the grounds that terrorism means attempting to influence a government and that interfering with the Gaza cleansing constituted an attempt to influence the government of the Righteous State. So as not to complicate matters or bother anyone too much, the trial jury was not informed of this codicil, which could mean swingeing penalties and life-long restrictions on the protesters' liberty if upheld. Fortunately, judges and juries will soon be released from all such cruel dilemmas thanks to the forthcoming abolition of jury trials, and eventually of all legal proceedings which do not contribute to the nation's economic growth.

Newly Unreformed

By a supremely unfortunate coincidence, one of the Farage Falange's shiny new councillors has had to resign for "personal reasons" before even dipping a toe in his time-consuming, non-grandstanding, unsalaried duties. In an unrelated matter, the patriot in question had allegedly posted on social media celebrating the rape of a Sikh woman and referring to Muslims as "dirt" and "rats." He has denied the allegations; and the Cadre of Directors at the Farage Falange has expelled him from the corporation, so presumably they believe the denial. The patriot also allegedly committed the indiscretion of claiming white people, rather than rich people, as the master race; which would be unlikely to help his case in any of Britain's three or four national right-wing parties.

Moderate Actions for Sensible Solutions

We've had a kicking, that's a fact,
So now it's either time to act
Or else to go on as before
And tell the plebs to love us more.

Our options now are stark and clear,
So let us face them without fear:
We'll either throw our Leader out
Or let him wait and hang about.

The work of change is not yet done,
The fight for Britishness not won.
We must transcend these ups and downs
And really verb the abstract nouns.

Verity Midler

Needs Must When the Tribble Drives

It's a cruel hard world for special people, and perhaps never more so than when enemies are inconsiderate enough to fight back. Fortunately, the United States also has allies and client régimes, and the Trumpster administration has shown itself prompt in turning on those whenever circumstances require. Although Denmark and Spain proved recalcitrant, Italy dubious and Britain whinily half-hearted, the recently installed satrap in Venezuela has obligingly rolled over and permitted the extraction of a slightly smaller quantity of enriched uranium than that which has served among the less whimsical pretexts for the Persian Crusade. The spoils of this brilliant victory were transported to South Carolina; presumably for storage in the private larder of the Trumpster's rabid radioactive head-tribble, which will surely be made greater as a result.

Could Do Better

British educational values remain robust if slightly diluted in Singapore, where the great pedagogical sport of flagellation is to be reintroduced. The pastime will only be practised upon male schoolboys who bully others, and only as a "last resort." Both conditions betray a certain post-imperialistic lowering of standards: true Britishness would never reserve corporal punishment to the last resort, and would not regard bullying as punishable at all, except possibly in cases where the victim was bringing in higher fees than the pupil with the leadership qualities.

Still Not Quite Worthy Of Us

Despite their shared British values and exalted status as His Majesty's Government's favourite fundamentalist head-choppers, the sensible moderates of the House of Saud have declined to follow Team Starmer's robust example in abetting the Persian Crusade. Naturally, the decision is motivated entirely by self-interest: having agreed a deal with Iran to safeguard Saudi oil exports, the House of Saud has chosen to ignore the great moral lesson, embodied in both the Trumpster and the CEO of Team Starmer, that one's pledges should never be worth the paper they are written on. By contrast with Britain's stalwart capitulation, the Saudi régime refused to allow use of its bases and airspace even for wink-wink defensive operations in the Strait of Hormuz, and does not even seem to regard Iran's reckless retaliations as significantly more sinful than such little indiscretions as the Trumpster administration's opening schoolgirl massacre.

Southern Water

Although Gibraltar notoriously voted against independence from the Strasbrussels dictatorship, it has remained thoroughly British in its standards of hygiene. Lacking a waste-water treatment plant, the colony is pumping forty thousand non-Barbary primates' worth of raw sewage into the Mediterranean. Attempts to improve matters have consisted mainly in throwing taxpayers' money at a pair of private companies, of which one pulled out because of financial difficulties and the other decided that it would rather do something else instead. Fortunately, the British government has exonerated itself of all legal responsibility by removing the UK from the jurisdiction that ruled against the pollution; while the colonial administration has blamed eveything on the dirty dagoes next door. It is surely a hopeful and glorious sign when an issue can be kept unresolved by methods even more British than the problem itself.

Tainted Holes

Despite several years of intermittent proximity to the Trumpster and his rabid radioactive head-tribble, it seems that certain portions of the White House have become unaccountably toxic. The monarch has requisitioned three Washington DC golf courses for conversion into his personal pleasure gardens, and some dumped rubble from the palace renovations was found to be poisoning the soil. A federal judge has attempted to interfere, warning of serious consequences should these ecological adjustments be permitted to continue without first filing the appropriate paperwork. How far the head-tribble will be minded to adapt its reproductive cycle to the whims of the judiciary remains as yet unclear.

The Better Class of Refugee

As one mediaeval potentate to another, the Pope has responded to the Trumpster's recent insults with a carefully measured fuck-you, appointing a sometime Salvadorian illegal immigrant as the church's chief henchman in West Virginia. As with our own Archbishop of Canterbury, who considered her talents too modest for a medical career, the appointee's initial vocation in janitorial and construction work apparently entailed insufficient humility and excessive material joy, besides the obvious moral flaw of mere worldly usefulness. Having moved to the US during the latter stages of the civil war in his own country, the appointee also has the advantage of presumed cleanliness from the taint of Liberation Theology, and of being politically shrewd enough to remove himself from the reach of the death squads by emigrating to the country that paid them.