Trickle

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It got her in the end, as she knew it would – sneaking past her defences in the third year. She wakes in the night, chilled to the bone, shivering uncontrollably no matter how deeply she burrows under the covers. For a second or two, she knows what it is to be old and permanently cold, scared witless by the winter ahead. She sees the true wickedness of ‘trickle-down economics’, the bad faith twined around its pitch-black heart.

Riddle me this: how is the bloated wealth of hedge fund manager Crispin ‘Odious’ Odey supposed to reach a pensioner subsisting on £134.25 per week? What path could it possibly take so that Elsie, 82, is able to both eat and heat this winter? When exactly would it reach her purse, given that trickle-down economics only ever trickles?

Sh*tty Shanty

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Lustily, to the tune of ‘My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean’

 Our sewage pours into the ocean
Our turds bob around in the sea
Brown effluent laps at our ankles
Oh bring back my Blue Flag to me

Bring back, bring back
Oh bring back my Blue Flag to me, to me
Bring back, bring back [deep breath]
the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive to me

The fat cats get £25 million
while shit clogs our rivers and seas
Their profits nudge £2.8 billion
Yeah money sure grows on those trees

Bring back, bring back
Oh bring back my Blue Flag to me, to me
Clear up, clear up
Oh clear up this strange rash for me

The Tories all think it’s appalling
and clutch at their pearls in dismay,
But back when they actually voted,
let shit-pumpers have their own way

Bring back, bring back
Oh bring back my Blue Flag to me, to me
Dish up, dish up
some great British seafood to me…

On second thoughts, I’ll just have a bag of chips.

Surfers Against Sewage
https://www.sas.org.uk/

The Rivers Trust
https://theriverstrust.org/key-issues/sewage-in-rivers

‘UK government’s sewage spills strategy is ‘cruel joke’, say critics’ (The Guardian, Friday 26 August)

Cosplay

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Tory leadership debate, 15 July 2022

So you’re a journo? Sure, I’ve got five minutes if you make it worth my while. Jeff Harris, 56. Been running Cosplay Capers for around eight years.

Well, she was in on Friday sorting out her costume for the telly. We’re just round the corner from the F.O. and I’ve always got loads of Maggie gear – goes down well with the dominatrix crowd. So we had a rifle through and found that lovely pussy-bow blouse: Mags circa 1979, rocking her iron-fist-in-velvet-glove look. Pair it with a dark jacket, I says to Liz, and you’ll be the spitting image.

Yeah, I watched the debate. More Robot Lady than Iron Lady, if you ask me.

To tell you the truth, I don’t want any of ’em to win. Millionaires playing at politics, all Instagram and hot air. Bring on the general election.

Toast!

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Following yesterday’s No Confidence Vote, we unleashed our prototype BullshitTranslatorTM on a selection of Tory statements. Gratifyingly, our results were 99.9% accurate.

Test 1. MP JAMES CLEVERLY: ‘It was a comfortable win. It was a clear win. […] Everyone should respect democracy and get on with it. The party needs to pull together, support the government, support the PM, support the country.’

Translation: ‘A catastrophic result. An almighty disaster […] Everyone should politely ignore it and let us get on with dismantling democracy. The party needs to pull together, support the PM, support the PM, support the PM’.

Test 2. MP PETER BONE: ‘A massive majority.’

Translation: ‘The worst result a sitting PM has ever had in a confidence vote, but if I say “massive majority” enough then they won’t twig’.

Test 3. PM BORIS JOHNSON: ‘I think it’s a convincing result, a decisive result and what it means is that, as a government, we can move on and focus on the stuff that I think really matters to people.’

Translation: ‘Everyone hates me. I’m toast.’

Following an exodus of more than 50 government officials, Johnson (sort of) resigned on Friday 8 July 2022.

50 words for Boris & Co.

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Inspired by Kate Bush & Stephen Fry’s ’50 Words for Snow’
You are invited to click randomly on 5 words
(reputable websites)

1. unprincipled
2. ruthless
3. undemocratic
4. unscrupulous
5. mendacious
6. perfidious
7. prevaricating
8. promise-breaking

Come on man, you’ve got 42 to go…
Come on man, you’ve got 42 to gooooooo…

9. deceitful
10. brazen
11. pugnacious
12. brutish
13. cake-ambushing
14. money-grabbing
15. vote-stealing
16. shit-stirring
17. lily-livered
18. pitiless
19. callous

Come on Joe, you’ve got 31 to go…
Come on now, just 31 to goooo-ooo-o-o…

20. flint-hearted
21. stone-hearted
22. Machiavellian
23. shameless
24. shameful
25. chummy
26. ignoble
27. nefarious
28. malevolent
29. cruel
30. out-of-touch
31. vexatious
32. life-taking
33. palm-greasing
34. crooked
35. partying
36. on-the-fiddle

Come on now, you’ve got 14 words to go…
14 words for Boris J. & Co…

37. bullying
38. pork-barrelling
39. preening
40. lulu-lytle-ing
41. economy-wreaking
42. non-dom-scamming
43. pervy
44. security-breaching
45. contemptuous
46. fraudulent
47. felonious
48. fridge-lurking
49. eye-sight-testing
50. criminal

The Gospel According to Mogg

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“For I was hungry and you gave me food sent me to a foodbank, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink cut Universal Credit as prices soared, I was a stranger and you welcomed me put me on a plane to Rwanda, I was naked and you clothed me got yourself a flash new suit from Savile Row, I was sick and you visited me partied on, I was in prison need of a lawyer and you came to me cut Legal Aid.” Then the Righteous One will answer Him, “Lord, we can’t just give handouts to any Tom, Dick or Jesus, especially when he’s a brown-skinned refugee.”

And the King will answer him, “Truly I say to you: you are a hypocritical, unchristian git.” Matthew 25:35-40

17 April 2022 (Easter Sunday): ‘Rwanda asylum plan is “almost Easter story of redemption” says Rees-Mogg’: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/apr/17/uk-asylum-seekers-plan-rwanda-jacob-rees-mogg

Sunak Attack

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Rishi ‘Man of the People’ Sunak stares glumly at the sunset from his £5.5 million Santa Monica penthouse. Why are they being so mean to him? Alright, so energy bills have risen by 54%, the UK’s facing the worst slump in living standards since 1956 and inflation’s through the roof, but what exactly do they want him to do about it? He’s only Chancellor, after all. He couldn’t slap a windfall tax on the billion-pound profits of the Big Six, or backtrack on that NI rise. Well OK, he could.

And now they’re having a pop at his darling hyper-wealthy wife. It’s not like she can help being a billionaire’s daughter. Or like she did anything illegal by paying thirty grand a year to get out of 20 million quid in taxes. Morally repugnant, yes, but not illegal.

The wind picks up. He adjusts his designer hoodie and sighs. Should have stuck to being a Tech Bro.

Londongrad

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Tim: Listen up — I’ve had a great idea for a Netflix series.

Mike: Oh yeah?

Tim: It’s a cross between The Manchurian Candidate, Inventing Anna and The Incredibles.

Mike: Go on…

Tim: So there’s this Russian guy, son of a London-based KGB agent turned oligarch in the post-Communist Wild West. They’re part of the filthy rich jet set, throwing parties at their Italian palazzo for celebrities and fun-loving politicians. One of these is a great pal – let’s say he’s a Mayor of London who becomes Prime Minister…

Mike: Hold up, Tim.

Tim: There’s more! Our chap gets citizenship, buys up some London newspapers, and then – in spite of repeated intelligence warnings – is made a Lord by his pal. The kicker is that they’re not even subtle: he’s something like ‘Baron Smirnoff of Henley-on-Thames in the County of Oxfordshire and of Siberia in the Russian Federation’. And that’s when the fun begins…

Mike: Can’t touch it, mate.

Tim: ???

Mike: Libellous.

Tim: Only if it ain’t true…

Operation Save Big Dog

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Circle the wagons
Show your loyal-ty
Because now, more than ever
It’s all about me.

No surprises there
It was always thus
A sociopathic ego
with a Big Red Bus.

But now the gig is up
Chickens coming home to roost
The leaker’s leaking good stuff
About how we all got juiced.

We partied while you locked down,
kept the rules and died in droves
But one of us was prepping
Revenge Served Cold.

Now I’m thinking through a plan to save
my own sorry skin
Who will take the fall for me
like Anne Boleyn?

The head upon the chopping block
surely won’t be mine.
Come sacrifice your souls
at the Boris Johnson Shrine.

Operation Save Big Dog
Operation Save Big Dick
Operation Save Arrogant Prick
Operation Save Me Me Me Me Me

Boosted!

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It’s one of those slightly surreal afternoons that Covid excels at.

First, a chemist’s at the grittier end of High Street, where one set of people is getting jabbed while another has their liquid methadone – live-saving stuff dusted with pleasantries:

‘Awright today, Steve?’
‘Could be worse, thanks, Bev.’

‘Just a small scratch…’
‘Well, that wasn’t so bad’.

Freshly boosted, she goes for a wander. She quite fancies a Bratwurst, but it’s too full for comfort. She’s damn well going to M&S for a little browse, though.

As she wrestles with her face mask at the entrance, a thirty-something-year-old bloke sidles up and says: “We still wearing a mask, then?”

His expression: smug righteousness. A confrontational gleam in the eye.

For a split second, she comes very close to decking him, then she turns and leaves him standing.

She has thermals to buy.