After retiring twelve years ago, Geoff Harper moved to Nightingale Close in Ashford in Kent — ‘for the quiet life’.

His house is near St. Mary’s, an old Norman church that overlooks twenty-seven acres of idyllic farmland where bluebirds sing, wildflowers bloom and butterflies cavort. Verily, ’tis the Garden of England!

That same twenty-seven acres has now been bought by the government, without any consultation, as a post-Brexit lorry park for 2000 HGVs waiting to process their export paperwork.

Geoff voted for Brexit, and is trying hard to understand how Vote Leave’s promises of cutting red tape have led to lorries thundering past his house 24/7. A house, moreover, whose value has just plummeted considerably. He would very much like to blame the EU for all of this in some way, but a sinking feeling in his stomach tells him the discomforting truth. He’s been had.

To the tune of Talking Heads, ‘Once in a Lifetime’

And you may find yourself
Running a confectionery wholesaler
And you may find yourself
Selling nuts, chocolates and sweets
And you may find yourself
In receipt of a large PPE contract
And you may find yourself
In a beautiful house
With a beautiful £108 million
And you may ask yourself
Well, how did I get here?

Letting the days go by, got mates in high places
Letting the days go by, no competitive tendering process
Who cares if the public asks, where has the money gone?
Once in a lifetime, our Covid Bonanza

Same as it ever was
Same as it ever was?
Worse than it ever was
Much worse than it ever was

And we may ask ourselves
How does a confectioner land a PPE contract?
And we may ask ourselves
Where *does* that audit trail go?
And we may ask ourselves Is it right? Is it wrong?
And we may tell ourselves (if we voted Tory)
My God! What have I done?

Update: On Friday 19 February 2021, Health Secretary Matt Hancock was found to have acted unlawfully by failing to publish multibillion-pound Covid-19 government contracts within the 30-day period required by law, thereby evading scrutiny and accountability. The legal challenge was brought by The Good Law Project. Donate if you can!

Yes thanks, I’ve had a pretty good pandemic. Focus groups view me as youthful, personable and competent — at least in comparison to all those other dimwits in the Cabinet. Someone who’s risen to the occasion in these unprecedented times.

A blind spot when it comes to Brexit? Certainly not. I stand by my comment: one thing I’m very humble about is the ability of economic forecasting to be that accurate.

No, my aversion to a new Brexit impact assessment has nothing to do with the Government’s gloomy 2018 prediction that our GDP will drop by 4.9% to 7.6% on leaving the EU. Or the fact that Covid has now made everything immeasurably worse.

Look. The future’s inherently uncertain. There’s really no point in trying to forecast anything.

Are we done? Great. Don’t suppose you’d mind if I borrowed your umbrella? It seems to be raining pretty heavily out there.

The Sun, Zoom editorial meeting, Sunday 12 July

Editor *sucks on a fag and exhales*: Right then. Gove’s launching his ‘Get Ready for the Shitstorm’ campaign, so we’d better look lively. I want a set of articles out tomorrow detailing all the extra Brexit charges in a helpful, sympathetic, but slightly surprised way.

Les: Like we never supported a Hard Brexit, or dubbed four years of expert and Remainer warnings ‘Project Fear’?

Editor *takes another drag*: Exactly. So Les, you do a sayonara to the European Health Insurance Card. We’ll call it ‘EHIC-UP’. Levi, you take mobile roaming charges… Headline: ‘Roam Fee’. And Qin can cover holidays and working abroad. I reckon a sassy ‘EU Need to Know’ for that one.

Levi: But Guv, won’t our readers think we’re a bunch of hypocritical bastards?

Editor *wreathed in smoke*: Hell no. They’re all too f*cking thick.

*Collective sniggers* *Zoom call ends*