One per cent

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Tory Government: Congratulations, ladies! You’ve got a whopping 1% pay rise!

Nurses: 1%?

TG: Damn right! Just think of everything you’ll be able to buy with that extra £3.50 a week.

Nurses: But… We’ve put our lives on the line for you in a f*cking pandemic. Held people’s hands as they were dying. Kept the NHS from tanking!

TG: Hmmm, there is that, I suppose. OK — let’s do another Clap for Carers.

Nurses: No. More. Token. Clapping. Give us a decent pay rise.

TG: Sorry, girls. Too busy outsourcing billions to our mates instead. And just think: if we can get away with 1% for nurses, then other public sector workers won’t stand a chance. So definitely don’t write to your MP. Now if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got a meeting about Carrie’s £200,000 makeover of Number 10. You know what they say: charity begins at home.

*According to the Royal College of Nursing, the pay of an experienced nurse has fallen by 15.3% in real terms over the past 10 years*

Should have listened to the exports

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Well, Bob, I’m pretty pleased with how it’s going so far. A 68% drop in goods going to the EU in the space of a year! What fantastic progress.

Come again, Fred?

Well, Gove was spot on, wasn’t he? We’ve had enough of exports. About as much use as a chocolate teapot.

Fred, you know that problem you’ve got with your hearing?

Pardon?

YOU KNOW THAT PROBLEM YOU’VE GOT WITH YOUR HEARING?

No need to shout, Bob.

Jesus wept! Fred, read my lips. Gove didn’t say Britain’s “had enough of EXPORTS”. He said Britain’s “had enough of EXPERTS”.

*Fred gives airy wave of the hand*

Exports, experts, same difference. Come on, Bob — don’t get all steamed up now. Let’s be sensible, as Raab suggests, and take a 10-year view.

Fred, you are such an f*cking idiot.

Who do you think you are kidding, Mister Johnson?

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To the ‘Dad’s Army’ theme tune

Who do you think you are kidding, Mister Johnson
When you claim you did all you could?
One hundred thousand excess deaths
So many were preventable.
From Chelten-ham to care homes
Your health policies were lamentable.
So who do you think you are kidding, Mister Hancock
If you think we don’t think you’re to blame?

Mister Brown goes off to town to ‘Eat Out and Get Covid’
Gives it to his nana, who then *guess what* dies of Covid.
So who do you think you are kidding, Mister Sunak
If you think we don’t think you’re to blame?

Who do you think you are kidding, Mister Johnson
When you say ‘we truly did everything we could’?
Crap PPE, crap Test & Trace
The airports left wide open.
Var-i-ants rampaging
There’s a gun and it is smoking.
So who do you think you are kidding, Mister Johnson
If you think there’ll be no public inquir-y?

Total Covid-19 deaths in the UK to 6 February 2021 = 112,092

You can sign the petition calling for a public inquiry into the government’s handling of Covid-19 here (set up by Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice)

Santa’s Got Covid!

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Mrs Santa: FFS, why did you let him go?

Elf: You know how he is. Once he’d heard that 3000 truckers were stranded without supplies, there was no stopping him. Said we were all in the same line of work and needed to stick together. He’s disguised himself as Nico, a Dutch haulier with a consignment of food and portaloos.

Mrs Santa: You don’t think that the sleigh and reindeer will give him away?

Elf: Um… Not sure he’s really thought things through.

Mrs Santa: Damn right. You do realise that Kent is the epicentre of the mutant Covid strain they’ve let run riot? That there have been nearly 80,000 deaths on Plague Island already? That Santa is a corpulent, wheezy old man in the very highest risk category? What do you reckon his odds are right now?

Elf: *miserable silence*

Mrs Santa: Prep the helicopter. We’re going in.

No. Deal. Brexit.

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H/T Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1843)

Ebenezer Johnson! I am the Ghost of Christmas Past! You and your cronies keep forgetting your wild promises and bare-faced lies, so here’s a quick reminder: “We hold all the cards / easiest trade deal in history / exactly the same benefits as before / there’s no plan for no deal because we’re going to get a great deal / we have a deal with the EU that is ready to go, it is oven ready — you just put it in the microwave and there it is.”

*Johnson shrugs*

Ebenezer Johnson! I am the Ghost of Christmas Present! Just curious: are you leading the most incompetent, tactically inept and self-deluded government in our entire nation’s history, or were you planning no deal all along?

*Johnson shrugs*

Ebenezer Johnson! I am the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come! Pull back from the brink or the country’s f*cked.

*Johnson shrugs*

Cummings & Goings

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Inspired by Gilbert & Sullivan’s ‘Major-General’s Song’

I am the very model of a modern Human Wrecking Ball,
I’ve information personal and private and political,
I know the Kings of England and I quote the fights historical,
From Waterloo to Leave EU in order categorical.

I’m very well acquainted too, with matters philosophical,
I understand Herr Nietzsche, that old nihilist and radical.
About the will to power I am teeming with a lot o’news,
I reckon I’m a genius but I’m dumber than a doggy chew.

I’m very good at coming up with catchy three-word slogans
And giving juicy contracts to the favoured and the chosen.
In short, in matters populist, divisive and political
I am the very model of a modern Human Wrecking Ball.

Contemptuous, mendac-i-ous, dishonest and duplicitous,
I do whatever pleases me, my ego and ambitiousness.
I flout the Lockdown rules to take a stroll round Barnard Castle,
Stick a finger up at lesser folk because I am an arsehole.

And now I’ve been ejected from the vipers’ nest at Downing Street
The list of those who hated me was on its twenty-second sheet.
In short, in matters populist, divisive and political
I am the very model of a modern Human Wrecking Ball.

Special Relationship

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Prime Minister, it’s time to phone President-elect Biden and offer him your congratulations.

Look, are you absolutely sure Biden’s won? No chance of Trump staging a comeback? We don’t want to blot our copybook — post-Brexit trade deal and all that.

Joe Biden has definitely won the American election, sir.

Bollocks. It’s just that… Obama thought it a trifle rude when I said he had an “ancestral dislike of the British Empire”. Didn’t understand I was joking. And apparently Joe’s got a long memory.

Sir, I’m sure he appreciated your robust failure to defend democratic processes following Trump’s attempts to stop the count.

Well, how could I know the way things would go?

Sir, that’s not the p… I’ll try to connect you now, sir.

*Brief conversation & awkward pause*

Sir, I’m afraid Mr Biden isn’t able to take your call, but he’s asked me to pass on a message.

Yes?

“Get to the back of the goddamn line.”

Lockdown

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Conversation with Greg, proprietor of the Complete Care Emporium, which sells mobility and household aids to the elderly.

Boris? He’s an idiot.* If you ask me, herd immunity’s definitely the way to go.* Just let it spread among the fit and healthy and we’ll be fine.*

Gives middle-aged cough, pats beer belly.

No, the fact that herd immunity’s only ever been achieved with a vaccine (polio, measles, mumps) clearly hasn’t entered my head. It’s not as if other coronaviruses — say the common cold — keep going round and round every year, is it?

You’re right, I haven’t bothered to read up on the science. But let me tell you how much I enjoy going to the pub every Friday night* and how the first lockdown cramped my style.

The elderly? Well, you just need to shield them* and get on with it*, don’t you?

Shop door chimes and two ancient people dodder in*

Back in a tick. I just need to serve these at-risk customers who form the bulk of my clientele.

*Verbatim from actual conversation. 
Proprietor & shop name changed.

Nice work!

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24 October 2020

Jeffrey, could you bring us up to speed on AMVCP Committee activities? 

Certainly, Steve. As you all know, the AMVCP’s remit is to Alienate as Many Voters as Comprehensively as Possible. And I must say that we’ve done a sterling job this month. Our lacklustre Job Support and SEISS schemes, along with the PM’s warning of a no-deal Brexit, have thoroughly pissed off the UK’s business and self-employed sectors. Using Manchester’s Tier 3 finance negotiations to take Mayor Burnham down a few pegs has also successfully enraged Red Wall voters. And our triumphant vote against ‘freebie’ school meals has resonated with almost everyone, burnishing our reputation as callous shits. Our reintroduction of VAT on face masks as the pandemic rages is but the icing on the cake… You have a question, lowly intern?

Um, yes… Wouldn’t it actually be better to keep our voters onside? 

*Uproarious laughter gives way to thoughtful silence* 

Maggie’s Ghost

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I do still miss the old place. So I drop in every now and then to check things are running smoothly. Except they haven’t been lately, have they? Not since the Right Dishonourable member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip became Prime Minister.

I couldn’t believe my eyes tonight. The Conservative Party — my own beloved party — approving a bill that rides roughshod over the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement and BREAKS INTERNATIONAL LAW. The Lord Chancellor and the Law Officers of England and Wales voting AGAINST an amendment ‘requiring Ministers to respect the rule of law and uphold the independence of the Courts’. For shame!

What on earth has become of us? How can I look Ronnie, François and Helmut in the eye now? Our once great nation is a pariah state.

No, I shan’t ever forgive them. And nor should you.

The Internal Market Bill passed its third reading in the House of Commons on 29 September 2020: 340 votes to 256, a majority of 84.