Historical Decency

Some fetters to be auctioned in Scotland were used by beastly Arab slave traders around 1780, a mere century before their evil doings were halted by a coalition of the virtuous including the British Empire, whose own slave trade was no longer around to provide a moral example of how it should be done. The auction has been condemned as profiting from oppression, in ways that the retention of the Crown Jewels self-evidently does not; and the only suggested solution appears to be public interest stewardship, which sounds suspiciously difficult to translate into either patriotism or economic growth. Even so, the ethical-historical debate is no doubt encouraging. Since many of our great nation's public buildings and much of its statuary are linked in one way or another to the Atlantic slave trade, and since practically all of our remaining tatters of prosperity are linked in one way or another to human rights abuses in the present, nothing could be more British than to erupt in righteous indignation over the legal sale of an antique symbol for hard work and playing by the rules.

Not the Way We Do Things

Someone has made an anonymous donation worth over two and a half million pounds towards repairing the water pipes in Osaka. Admittedly, the gesture is a quixotic one - the money is in gold bars, and is enough to pay for the renewal of about a hundred and thirty-third of the city's antiquated system - but the donor's apparent obsession with mere infrastructure over the needs of moisture provision profiteers is surely a dangerous whim. City officials are stunned, as well they might be, at such anti-business and un-British conduct.

Without Prejudice

Thames Valley Police have arrested a pop-eyed purple manbaby from Norfolk and have subsequently released it upon its own congnizance. Officers are carrying out searches at various addresses, but although the suspect is from an immigrant family it is not thought likely at this point in time that police will find it necessary to implement any clandestine evidential augmentation measures. Since the alleged offence is the comparatively minor one of misconduct in public office, rather than anything so heinous as displaying words or being noisy in a manner liable to discombobulate His Majesty's Government, a lengthy period of imprisonment without trial is also not deemed necessary at this time. In view of the suspect's family connections, financial resources and racial profile, it is only fair to remind the public that contempt of court is a Very Bad Thing when committed by little people.

Tiger Economics

Those who rejoiced at Team Starmer's moderate and sensible rowing back on the green crap will doubtless be further gladdened by the continuing improvements wrought by the climate catastrophe. Tropical diseases are making their way into southern Europe; and the Asian tiger mosquito, which transmits the excruciating chikungunya virus, is likely to find a comfortable home among the real people before very long. The prolonged and severe joint pain which results from infection may impede shelf-stacking, soldiering and breeding little Britons, but could still prove beneficial for the economy in the long run, as it will provide a useful incentive for health industry customers to pay for the expensive vaccine. It is to be hoped that Wideboy Wesley Streeting and the other grown-up guardians of the nation's health will be sufficiently far-sighted to make the appropriate investments.

Who Could Possibly Have Foreseen It?

There is no pleasing some people, and various local authority malcontents who squealed with indignation at Team Starmer's proposed postponement of council elections are now squealing with indignation at the cancellation of the said postponement. The chair of the District Councils' Network even implied that a government which unilaterally endowed the Righteous State with the legal right to inflict collective punishment on civilians might have a less than altogether secure grasp on issues of law. Although several council leaders did shrug the matter off as a more or less routine fiasco, others are waxing indignant, having somehow failed to plan for the possibility that Team Starmer, of all the empty middle-management suits in the world, might proclaim a decision and then, in short order, be induced to decide otherwise.

Performative Virtue

Recent objections against actors pretending to be people they're not have been taken to a new level by a theatre audience in western Germany. An actor delivering a climactic monologue as a right-wing agitator was heckled, pelted and nearly assaulted by spectators who were apparently expecting something more anodyne from a play subtitled The Beauty of Killing Fascists. Doubtless those employing Nazi disruption tactics against what they presumably considered degenerate art were motivated by the best intentions, and will pass on their stage rage with alacrity when the polite young men from AfD arrive at their homes for a chat about what is only common sense.

A Cunning Stratagem

With the Heathen Chinee military suffering a degree of emotional instability after recent purges, the kingdom of the Trumpster and his head-tribble is stepping up its efforts to preserve liberty, truth and plucky little Taiwan. The ever more hilariously-named Central Intelligence Agency has reached out to its little yellow brothers in the hope of recruiting a traitor or two, and has shown uncommon cultural sensitivity in recording its propaganda videos in Mandarin. Beijing has removed several high-ranking officers from their posts on grounds of corruption, so it is to be hoped that sufficient numbers of useful Heathen Chinee will be aware that the risk of such persecution in the kingdom of the Trumpster and his head-tribble is considerably lower than the risk of being fatally shot by the racial purification militia.

Marching Back In

Look not at Mandy nor at me,
For that would not be fair -
Look over there instead, and see
That savage Russian Bear.

We may not like to integrate
With dirty Huns and Frogs;
But all must now co-operate
In fighting bigger wogs.

Our Brexit days were way back when,
So now we wish to be
Inside the good old club again,
If not to pay the fee.

Manly Scrapper

Seamless Britishness

In yet another political manoeuvre designed to defeat the Farage Falange by becoming the Farage Falange, the Ministry for Wog Control is to institute punitive measures against those who cannot make up their minds to be British. Starting on the eve of the Manchester by-election, people with dual nationality will be denied entry to the country unless they either have a British passport or pay a fine of £589 in return for a certificate of racial acceptability. Any foreign-born children of British citizens will also be treated as Euro-wogs by default until they demonstrate the proper degree of fiscal patriotism. Nevertheless, while this ministerial master-stroke has prompted an outcry from British expatriates resentful of being treated like immigrants, it remains once more unclear whether the Farage Falange will condescend to be appeased.

Transformative Moderation Within the Bounds of the Hypothetical

Whatever its troubles on the electability front, Team Starmer remains determined to push through its agenda for change; hence the announcement by Wideboy Wesley Streeting that years of below-inflation pay rises for NHS personnel are to be moderately and sensibly transmogrified with a below-inflation pay rise for NHS personnel. Since so many frontline NHS workers are immigrants, the imposition of another de facto cut will win over yet more Farage Falange voters with legitimate and understandable concerns about costs to the taxpayer; while the Labour membership's vision of Wideboy Wesley as a prince in waiting will be healthily tarnished by association with an unpopular parsimony. Displaying their usual skewed sense of priority, the unions have shown little appreciation for these subtleties, even though the pay rise is below the rate of inflation only from the limited and doubtless borderline-antisemitic viewpoint of current reality. When considered alongside a rate of inflation that is purely anticipatory and unencumbered by vulgar actuality, the Streeting largesse in fact stands quivering on the verge of the noticeable. Let's hope he hasn't gone too far.