A Small Breather

Hello, dear readers. In case you're wondering what bus I have accidentally slipped under, I'm taking a brief hiatus from the blog in order to concentrate on a few other special projects. Of course, none of these will make me any money either, but they just have to be done.

I expect normal service to resume round about 22 May, assuming our political leaders haven't collectively managed to blow up the planet by then. In the meantime, you're welcome to follow me on Twitter, where I will be continuing to spout nonsense at 140 characters a shot under the not-very-inspired codename williamduguid1. Stay tuned, the best is yet to come!

A Statement From The Chancellor of the Exchequer

George Osborne was up in the land of my birth today, spreading the word about why we’re all so useless and should just do as he says. I wasn’t around to capture his exact words, but here’s the gist of his speech:

People of Glasgow!

As a member of the social class that owns much of Scotland, I’m becoming increasingly concerned about the damage its people are about to inflict upon its prosperity by promulgating the dangerous notion that they’re fit to take decisions for themselves.

At the funeral of Lady Thatcher, who did so much to encourage innovation in the Scottish economy by dynamiting all its traditional industries, it was hard to restrain a tear at the thought of a proud people being reduced again to painting their faces in woad, and eking out a meagre living on crofts. It would be painful to watch that happen, especially if ill-conceived European legislation prevented us from chucking them out and replacing them with sheep.

As for the idea of currency union after independence, what hallucinogens are in all those pies Alex Salmond is eating? Yes, we have to put up with it for now, even though Holyrood fritters away the money on educating people and looking after them in old age, but if you ungrateful bastards are going to flounce off in a hissy fit, you can whistle for it. It would be like allowing down-and-outs to shelter in our garden shed. On the surface the neighbours would commend us for our social conscience, but secretly they’d blackball us and we’d never be invited to the hunt ball again. That’s no joke when our standing in the world relies heavily on balls.

I suppose Alex thinks he can photocopy some currency of his own at the sole surviving branch of ProntaPrint in Sauchiehall Street, but it’ll just be comedy money. After five minutes’ exposure to the relentless glare of the financial markets, it’ll take three sporrans to transport the price of a loaf of bread, and incoming tourists will bring Monopoly sets with them and become instant millionaires. Just think how London taxi drivers larf at Scottish banknotes now! (Isn’t “larf” a great word? Those anti-elocution lessons were worth every penny.)

In the end, after a doomed attempt to operate an elaborate barter system involving casks of whisky, bottles of Irn-Bru, Arbroath smokies and drawerfuls of hardened porridge, Scotland will be forced to kow-tow and adopt the Euro. Soon it will be exactly like Cyprus, only with miserable weather, and Herman van Rompuy and a deputation from the European Central Bank will be going house to house, ruthlessly emptying every shortbread tin of every last bawbee.

On the question of North Sea Oil I have two things to say. Firstly, it represents a very volatile and uncertain source of income, and to rely on it to shore up an otherwise crumbling and tottering economy is madness, except for the period from 1979 to 1997, when it was genius. Secondly, with all the new exploration going on at the moment it’s a bloody great bonanza waiting to happen, so we’re not going to let Scotland have it.

Of course Scotland is fast becoming a world leader in wind power, something that as a politician I know a great deal about. Alex and his coterie no doubt imagine that this will keep Scottish sitting rooms bathed in light while the power cuts starting in 2017 plunge everything south of the border into gloom. Their estimate of generating capacity may turn out to be optimistic, since I have a nagging fear that several Trident missiles, accidentally fired in all directions while being moved from Faslane to Barrow-in-Furness, may unfortunately destroy the majority of the turbines. However, Scottish sitting rooms will still be suffused with a lasting glow, as will their inhabitants.

See how uncharted all this territory is? European law will force us to erect border posts, at which Scots won’t be allowed to enter England unless they say the magic word in exactly the right accent. Mail travelling in either direction will need to be extensively examined for evidence of knavish tricks, so some people will be getting Christmas cards in August. Shutting off the Internet may be more of a challenge, so we’ll probably just flood the Web with images of morris dancers having a great time. I’m not sure we can afford the costumes for that last one, but we could probably force some workfare candidates to supply their own.

So I hope the Scottish people will see sense. Just accept that you’re “a wee diddy country”, as your delightful vernacular so charmingly puts it, and let the Westminster Government continue to deliver the grinding, soul-sucking austerity we need in order to bequeath a balanced budget to our children’s children’s children’s children’s children’s children’s children’s children’s children’s children’s children’s children’s children’s children in, ooh, I dunno, 2413 or thereabouts.

I’m sure there’s a sensible debate to be had about whether Scotland should, or shouldn’t, go it alone as an independent country, but I have a sedan chair to catch, so stuff that for a lark.

Vote Conservative! Or Labour or Lib Dem, they’re all pretty similar nowadays. So long, suckers!

The Eyes Of Caligula

Where were you when you heard about the death of Lady Thatcher?

It’s the question everyone is going to be asked, so you’d better have a good answer ready. If it’s “in a state of euphoria”, best not to commit it to Twitter, unless you want the Daily Mail vetoing your next dozen job applications. If it’s “She is not dead, she lives on in the hearts of the people”, welcome to your new career at the BBC.

Did Lady T provoke extreme reactions? Ooh, just a bit. I’m not yet 100 words into this post, and already my keyboard has gone on strike and had to be battered into submission by a squad of toy policemen. And, if music be the food of hatred, how about the iconic anthem currently storming the iTunes download charts like an MP shimmying up a drainpipe in search of a free meal: Judy Garland singing Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead?

On the positive side of extreme, the Queen is breaking with precedent by attending the funeral, although, since the poor woman had to endure weekly lectures from Maggie for over 11 years, this may just be to check there are no last-minute hitches in the departure lounge. And the Baroness’s demise is being marked by the recall of Parliament for a full session of fawning tributes. That’s longer than they recently took to debate the evisceration of the Welfare State. Make sure your captors tune the TV to a channel away from BBC Parliament before they tie you to that radiator.

The extremes even exist within a single opinion. François Mitterrand described Lady T as having “the eyes of Caligula and the mouth of Marilyn Monroe.” It’s just as well he put it that way round, as otherwise we’d have been stuck with the image of her fluttering her eyelashes as she ordered the execution of Geoffrey Howe and replaced him with a horse. Hang on, that’s not so far off the truth....

So what do we all agree upon? I ran a search on Google for “Political Clichés”, and came up with “A towering figure with a forceful personality who broke the mould of British politics.” OK, at the moment the first two-thirds of that description sounds suspiciously like The Incredible Hulk, but let’s give it a chance, and see how it played out in the context of the last 70 years.

First and foremost, you don’t need a forceful personality to get things done in politics. Clement Attlee, the obvious nomination for our leading 20th century peacetime Prime Minister if you want to annoy Tory loyalists, was a somewhat undemonstrative chap. Hence the statement about him that Winston Churchill always denied making: “An empty taxi drew up outside 10 Downing Street and Clement Attlee got out of it.”

But Attlee’s government built the post-war consensus and instigated the Welfare State and National Health Service. It was some achievement, since the country didn’t have a bedpan to piss in and needed help from the Americans, who presumably didn’t twig that they were subsidising Socialism. This cosy arrangement ushered in a golden era of washing machines, lovable Scouse moptops and unrestricted sexual intercourse, with only the odd misgiving about potential nuclear annihilation.

However, by the 1970s things weren’t going so well. Unions and management stopped making things in favour of beating each other over the head with rolled-up newspapers. In an unscheduled return of the Dark Ages, millions heated up tins of Spam over primus stoves by candlelight. Decent haircuts became completely unaffordable. Worst of all, the country’s bedpan went missing, and we had to borrow a spare one from the International Monetary Fund, who imposed their usual condition of being allowed to break people’s knuckles at random.

So by 1979, exactly halfway between 1945 and today, it was clear that Something Had To Be Done. Presumably, if they’d been elected with a working majority, Labour would have done Something, since I’m pretty sure their 1979 manifesto didn’t say, “Bugger it, let’s keep muddling along in this shambles and hope nobody notices.” However, although it was a carefully manufactured cross-party shambles, it was Labour’s turn to be a busted flush, so the electorate appointed Maggie to do Something.

And the Something that she did was devastating.

Creaky old industries? Anybody who was more than a bulldozer in human form might have considered how to transform or replace the bits marked ”creaky” and “old”, but she just obliterated the industries. People with outmoded skills? Low-paid call centres or scrapheap. Vested interests, such as the trade unions? She destroyed them, only for them to be replaced by the more sinister, and still pernicious, vested interests of the rich.

Those who benefited from the whole process naturally idolise her, although the election of an Argentinian Pope may put the kybosh on her being canonised. Those who lost out - sometimes dreadfully - hate her with a venom that eats the soul.

In her defence, Maggie didn’t act alone. A succession of dispensable snivelling nincompoops, some of whom remain uncomfortably close to the levers of power, carried her bags throughout. But she was the most industrious of them all, working a 20-hour day and making efficient use of that time by not stopping to give a damn what anyone else thought. And, of course, her whole philosophy swiftly took on the name of “Thatcherism”, a personalisation she never saw fit to discourage.

Why this all matters, nearly 23 years after “we” - Maggie and Denis, or just Maggie being royal? - left Downing Street, is that the most destructive aspect of Thatcherism is still alive and kicking, with hob-nail boots, in today’s politics. It was Thatcherism that first made it acceptable, even cool, to sneer at those without work as lazy good-for-nothings who just need to sort themselves out, while the government pursues policies that salami-slice away their means of doing so. It’s consummate bollocks, a poisonous lie, but it’s the sub-text of every statement about work and opportunity that dribbles from the mouths of our leaders today.

I don’t dance on people’s graves. As the reaction to Lady T’s death unfolds, perhaps it’s easy to condemn those who do, but since I haven’t personally watched my whole community being reduced to desolation, or witnessed relatives on a picket line getting truncheoned, or heard the authorities slander my son who’d died at a football match, or seen the foreign dictator who slaughtered my uncle given tea and sandwiches, or suffered any of the other insults and injuries inflicted on the victims of Thatcherism, I don’t believe I have any right to criticise them. What I would say is, catharsis may well be necessary, so don’t hold back. But, once you’ve done that, we urgently need to look forward.

It was 34 years from Attlee to Mrs Thatcher. That didn’t work out so well. It’s been 34 years from Mrs Thatcher’s election until now. Things aren’t working out so well these days either. It’s time for another change, one that unites us instead of dividing us. Forget her, and let’s get started.

The Enemies Of Promise

As the silence grew embarrassing, Nickleby ventured a question. “Was your hotel satisfactory, Mr. Gove?”

“There is no such thing as satisfactory!” came the barked response. “It required improvement. The water in the shower was insufficiently cold, the chambermaid was unable to understand commands in perfectly good Latin and the receptionist could add up the bill only by relying on a calculator.”

Out of the side of his mouth, Wilkins whispered to Quelch. “Remind me again why we need to have this owlish little tit tagging along.”

Quelch had no need to answer, since the whole team had participated in the previous afternoon’s tense briefing at Ofsted headquarters. The Secretary of State had let it be known, via a pair of stockily-built special advisers who wouldn’t take “no” for an answer, that he wished to accompany an inspection team on one of its school visits.

“He’s a bit of a short-arse”, the boss had remarked, “so he shouldn’t get in your way. Just agree with whatever he says, because otherwise he gets stroppy and mysterious associates of his pop up on Twitter and trash your reputation. Oh, and if a photographer wants to take a picture of him kneeing a Marxist teacher in the balls, get out of shot at all costs.”

That was all very well, but for the last 25 minutes they had been stuck in the bike shed of St Colitis Secondary School, in a corner of East Anglia that time forgot, waiting for the camera crew to show up. Finally, just as everybody’s private parts were beginning to sprout icicles, Squeers re-appeared, hastily stubbing out a fag, with the news, “Gary from BBC Norfolk is here at last.”

Gary’s lateness, it transpired, had been down to bad luck. A bolt of lightning had hit his camera that very morning, necessitating lengthy repairs, and then the dog had chewed his Sat-Nav. As Gary set forth this explanation, the Secretary of State could not resist articulating a degree of scepticism, but fortunately Gary didn’t get sarcasm. In any case, Squeers had by now taken charge of the binoculars, and had interesting news.

“The main entrance seems to be unguarded. We should make our move.”

“Can I kick the door in?” enquired the Secretary of State, clapping his hands.

“Possibly dangerous, sir. If the floor is polished you might slide for several yards. Perhaps you’d do us the honour of operating the megaphone instead?”

At this the Secretary of State proved to be a natural. “YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE. THIS IS OFSTED, I REPEAT THIS IS OFSTED. ENEMIES OF PROMISE, YOUR TIME OF RECKONING IS NIGH. PLEASE STEP AWAY FROM THE CHILD YOU ARE CURRENTLY INDOCTRINATING. ALL COPIES OF DAS KAPITAL ARE TO BE BROUGHT TO THE PLAYGROUND FOR BURNING. PUPILS, REJOICE IN YOUR FREEDOM! PLEASE BEGIN MEMORISING THE NEAREST DICTIONARY, AS TESTING WILL SHORTLY COMMENCE.”

“Odd,” observed Wilkins. “That spiel usually gets us some verbal abuse, or at least a couple of sly hand gestures. Not a peep out of this lot.”

It was indeed an almost eerie silence that surrounded the Ofsted party as, one by one, they broke cover and sprinted the short distance from bike shed to school door. Gary was last through, juggling his camera and a grande latte as he padded along.

That was when the giant portcullis swept down over the door with a thunderous clang.

“Oh, God,” said Nickleby. “Not a trap again.”

The dying echo of the portcullis was replaced by several sharp whistling noises. With a high-pitched squeal Gary collapsed, clutching his arm. Quelch, scalded by spilt coffee, hopped up and down for a couple of seconds, delivering an impressive sequence of uninterrupted expletives, until he too was cut down by triangular missiles spinning into each of his calves.

“Flapjacks!” yelled Wilkins. “The bastards! Take cover!”

Dragging their wounded, the inspection team edged back into a corner of the vestibule. The Secretary of State shouted frantically into his mobile, “Condition red. Men down. Request ass....” before collapsing in a helpless fit of coughing.

“Stink bombs!” Wilkins was proving to be a remarkably good means of exposition. “The kids are in on it. We’re in big trouble.” He might have elaborated, but for two of his teeth being dislodged by a flying blackboard duster.

In the unequal struggle that followed, the more alert members of the Ofsted team would have noted that the school was excellently resourced, given the range of sports equipment, scientific apparatus and classroom furniture staff and pupils were able to use in subduing them. When the mayhem finally ended and the last of the chalk dust had settled, they found themselves confronted by a blob-shaped middle-aged woman stroking a Persian cat.

“Mr Gove,” she said. “What an unexpected pleasure. I am headmistress here and my name is Carol Marks. Not my real name, of course, but I trust you’ll find the jest amusing. Welcome to the National Union of Teachers’ new zero-tolerance policy for Ofsted inspections. I congratulate you on discovering our evil scheme of turning the country’s state school pupils into clueless zombies living on undeserved benefits, but it will do you no good. As we brainwashed them, so will we brainwash you.”

She opened a book. The Secretary of State’s eyes widened. “No.....” he gasped.

“The workers have nothing to lose but their chains,” she read. “They have a world to gain. Workers of the world, unite”.

The Secretary of State’s spectacles began to melt, and he let out an anguished scream that burned itself into the memory of all who heard it.

“From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”

The screaming was now breaking down into helpless whimpering. “The humanity,” murmured Nickleby, aghast.

“The class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the WHAT THE HELL?” These last three words were occasioned by a supermarket lorry crashing through the wall, sending the portcullis flying. A well-aimed can of baked beans put paid to the rest of the headmistress’s speech.

As riot police disembarked from the back of the lorry, the driver picked up the battered megaphone. “YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE,” he announced. “THIS SCHOOL IS NOW BEING RUN BY ASDA ON A FOR-PROFIT BASIS, IN THE NAME OF THE WAL-MART EMPIRE. SHELF-STACKING CLASSES WILL BEGIN ON MONDAY. IF YOU CAN FIND A CHEAPER EDUCATION ANYWHERE WE WILL REFUND THE DIFFERENCE. YOUR NEW HEADMASTER IS KEVIN FROM EGGHEADS. VOTE CONSERVATIVE. THAT IS ALL.”

“Finally!” spluttered the Secretary of State. “I thought you’d never get here.”

“No problem, Mr Gove,” said the lorry driver. “From now on these kids will be teached proper, don’t you worry. Have you got the money like we agreed?”

“Um... George says there’s still a bit of a problem with the deficit, actually. Can we cut it down by 50 million and make up the rest in exclusive food stamps contracts?”

The driver smiled and patted his trouser pocket. “That’s Asda price,” he said.

The NHS - A Great Leap Forward

Hi everyone, especially those who are sick or thinking of becoming sick!

There are some really exciting developments taking place in the NHS right now, and, what’s more, I’ve won the contract to publicise them, in return for a lifetime supply of Valu-Pak potato crisps. So keep taking the tablets, and away we go!

Firstly, a big shout-out to our spanking new 111 phone number for non-emergencies, your hotline to an operative with your well-being firmly grafted into an icon on his desktop, or, in case the system crashes, a flow-chart on his desk. We’re still working hard on your behalf at the Job Centre, identifying the cream of call specialists, so if you happen to be kept waiting on the line we’ll offer you options: either a bombardment of cutting-edge advertising from our sponsors, or an exclusive recording of Wagner’s Ring Cycle. If you lose consciousness, simply enter “1948” on your keypad and your call will immediately be transferred to the emergency services.

From 1 April, your local NHS Trust will be part of Mr Gove's history curriculum, because we’re chucking it in the bin. In its place, a group of doctors will be working their socks off to ensure proper competitive tendering: your guarantee that, if the obvious service for you is unavailable or we can't be bothered to pay for it, the gap will be filled by some rinky-dink private sector alternative.

Let’s say you need an ambulance, but, because of a blip in the 111 service, all the available units have been sent to attend to a case of hiccups in a cul-de-sac at the bottom of a ravine. Under the new regulations, you still have the option of negotiating with a passing rickshaw driver, or asking your neighbours whether they have a giant catapult in their shed. For a small additional supplement, we’ll even ask David Miliband to send some International Rescue helicopters so that you can be extraordinarily rendered to hospital.

We know that doctors would prefer to focus on the job of repairing you, instead of agonising over which private supplier can most efficiently process your clinical outcome. That’s why we’re committed to providing them with an accountant, just one premium-rate call away, to help them take a wider view unclouded by strictly medical considerations. For example, my local commissioning group will be referring all its tendering decisions to Mr Simpkins, whose 2:2 degree in History enables him definitively to state that sawing off a patient’s leg without anaesthetic is not only the cheapest option but, on available 18th century evidence, the one least likely to require a return to hospital.

As soon as you come into our care, you’ll become aware that compassion is now at the core of the NHS. Sir David Nicholson personally looked it up in the dictionary, and is on balance convinced that it’s a winner! In order to get the message through to student nurses, who are clearly responsible for every ill that’s beset the NHS since its inception, we’ve undertaken to send them on an additional year of training in the bleedin’ obvious. But don’t get the idea that we’ve forgotten management. Although you won’t see them unless there’s an emergency evacuation, rest assured that they’ll all be forced to wear “sad face” badges as they fine-tune the latest round of redundancies.

In the new transparent NHS, the duty of candour is paramount. Now, if you’re a cynic, as I’m advised some of the electorate may be, you might think these are weasel words empty of meaning. But no! From now on, if a nurse takes one look at your bedpan and thinks that changing it is a job for Norman Lamb, or whatever Lib Dem minister the Government has chosen to humiliate with on-site duties this week, she’s legally obliged to say so. In the same way, when you complain to the Department of Health about the hell on earth to which your relatives have been subjected because of staff shortages, we'll be compelled to waste less of your time before saying, “Go away, insect, you begin to annoy us.”

When things go wrong, whistleblowers are still slow to come forward, under the impression that we’ll somehow be narky about them drawing attention to our outrageous institutional incompetence. This culture of fear is greatly exaggerated. In all our interviews with staff about their concerns, only once or twice have we been forced to resort to waterboarding. And if, reluctantly, we find we have to let them go, we undertake that no gagging clause will be imposed on them, although they may have to report to Neurosurgery for a couple of minor procedures.

We do recognise that, even after all these changes, patients or their relatives may still have grounds for complaint about the NHS. Still, we reckon that the Government’s destruction of Legal Aid should put paid to any bloody nonsense on that front. Of course, you can always represent yourself in court, but we’ve got decent lawyers and you’ve got a box-set of Judge John Deed, so who do you think is gonna win?

Wishing you well!

Hey, Why Don't We Just Shift The Goalposts?

The rule of law is such a pain, isn’t it?

Your workfare scam is purring along nicely, Poundland are really chuffed about all the free staff and you’ve massaged the unemployment figures into a blissed-out trance. Then some speccy know-all takes you to court because she’d rather arrange rocks in a dusty museum than Haribo wine-gums in a depressing shed. Naturally, you arrange for your friends in the Press to trash her reputation, and wait for her 15 minutes of fame to gurgle down the plughole.

But, to your horror, some doddery old judge comes out in her favour, and says you can’t take away her benefits because you forgot to threaten her properly first. Then it turns out you were equally remiss with her 230,000 pals, so you have to pay them back a total of £130 million. ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY MILLION POUNDS! That’s, like, 30 Barclays bonuses!

The Budget is only a couple of days away, and the Chancellor is chewing the carpet because your department’s buggered up his tax cuts. A group of millionaires is gathering outside the Treasury, looking impatiently at their watches and sighing. What on earth do you do?

If you’re Iain Duncan Smith, it’s simple! You ram emergency retrospective legislation though Parliament, declaring that taking away the benefits, which the court said was illegal, was actually legal. Hey presto! Money you shouldn’t have withheld in the first place becomes an “undeserved windfall” that doesn’t need to be paid. Yah boo sucks. You lose, oiks.

Of course, if you’re doing this sort of magic trick, you need a beautiful assistant to distract the audience. Unfortunately, the Government doesn’t do “beautiful”, so it had to settle for the Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, Liam Byrne, an IDS tribute act who appears to have as many scruples as he does combs. He led the Labour front bench in their exciting new Parliamentary strategy of, “Let’s not oppose, because that’s just what they’d expect us to do.” When voting time came, with a few honourable exceptions - eerily corresponding to the rapidly diminishing number that have worked in a proper job - Labour members froze in their places and remained perfectly still. Statues underpinning Tories.

But let's be positive. Now that we’ve established the Government can simply Tipp-Ex out the bits of law it doesn’t like, a whole new vista opens. Let’s sack all these expensive legislative drafters and, in a move so savagely ironic it will make Liam’s head explode, replace them with workfare slaves! It doesn’t matter what bird-brained, unworkable toot they produce, because you can always find a few spineless MPs who’ll tweak it into a clear endorsement of your latest evil scheme.

George Osborne will be a particular beneficiary. Now he can make a magic money tree exist, not exist, or be in both states simultaneously, depending on the poshness of the people asking for the handout. No longer need he be in a blue funk before Budgets, wondering if the public will realize that his five-year growth projections are based entirely upon the export of unicorns to Narnia, or that he’s sneakily offering Richard Branson an interest-free loan for his new country cottage. Now, the minute Evan Davis gets snidey at him on the Today programme, all he has to do is append to his Budget statement the words, “And then I woke up, and it had all been a dream.”

Politicians will surely fall over themselves to exploit the possibilities. Michael Gove could raise the pass mark for last year’s GCSEs to 101%, then accuse every single school of failing and turn them over to his chums to run for profit. Jeremy Hunt could add a codicil to the original 1948 NHS legislation saying, “After 65 years, privatise as much of this as you can, flush the rest down the toilet and run like hell.” Eric Pickles could issue a decree affirming that, since time began, he has been entitled to eat all the pies.

This is a field in which Britain is world-class. When we set the rules of the game, we’re hard to match. When we update them while nobody’s looking, we’re unbeatable. We even own the language, for Heaven’s sake, though the Scandinavians and the Dutch speak it better. In this brave new world, dictionary definitions automatically fall like ninepins.

So, as the housing benefit squeeze continues, the meaning of “bedroom” will steadily extend to encompass “unusually spacious broom cupboard”, “room with large bath” and, ultimately, “any room with at least one flattish surface”. For those who still have savings, “interest” will come to mean “bitterly humorous mythical concept”. And, of course, as the Government realizes that Liam Byrne was right and there really is no money left, their beady eyes will fasten on all of our bank accounts, and the word “theft” will be magically replaced by the word “tax”.

Hmm, I think someone may already have beaten us to that one.

After this post was created, Bill Duguid was arrested under an emergency law written on the back of a fag packet, retrospectively banning criticism of retrospective legislation. He was then immediately jailed on National Security grounds for threatening to explode a politician’s head. Bet he wishes he’d signed up with the new press regulator now!!

He does have one consolation, in that he is now best friends forever with his fellow inmate Chris Huhne, although this may change when Chris realizes Bill doesn’t have a driving licence.

Turbulent Priest

As the Government faces up to hard choices, thanks to Gordon Brown single-handedly destroying the economies of 38 countries, the last thing it needs is a bunch of God-botherers carping on the sidelines. So Iain Duncan Smith must have been devastated that some Anglican bishops could think of no better response to his carefully-crafted Benefits Uprating Bill than to moan to the Telegraph about chav kids losing out on Big Macs! Honestly, why can’t the Church of England stick to marginalising women, curing gay people and annihilating itself with internal schisms, instead of meddling in politics like this?

Especially disappointing for IDS, a sensitive man who pours his heart and soul into poverty, was the sheer lack of courtesy. Days before the bishops’ collective explosion, the new Archbishop of Canterbury had a meeting with him, without giving any hint that he would soon become the ringleader of the protest. This omission was irritating for the Government, whose spin doctors had been hard at work creating pictures of Dr Welby with the slogan “I Heart Austerity” Photoshopped on to his cassock.

Of course, there is always the possibility that Dr Welby did mention his concerns, but made the mistake of using subtlety, which rarely works with IDS. Still, surely a cleric, of all people, should know how to get his message across to the earnest but deluded?

In any event, it looks as if this Archbishop of Canterbury is going to be a worry. Maybe once he’s properly enthroned, and the brain-scrambling devices in his special hat start to work, he’ll realise his best interests lie in sticking to platitudinous waffle and occasionally buttering up the Queen. But, more likely, we’ll end up with a latter-day Runcie, wittering on about Faith in the bloody City. Given his fine education and impeccable corporate grounding, you’d have expected him to be rock-solid reliable, yet all it’s taken for him to go completely native is a few snaggle-toothed smiles from Big Issue sellers. What a waste!

If he’s going to be one of those Archbishops who use the Bible as the basis for what they say and do, that could be problematic. Don’t get me wrong: the first part of the book is tremendous, with copious blood, regular smiting, a drone strike on Sodom and Gomorrah and a general zero-tolerance approach to wrongdoers. But the second part is an utter disappointment, particularly the central character “Jesus”, whose irresponsible approach to social issues is just the sort of claptrap that would bankrupt Britain if the Socialists had their way.

Jesus is the typical product of a dysfunctional family. Born while mother is sleeping rough in someone’s backyard. Natural father nowhere to be seen, although mysteriously claimed to be “everywhere”. Early days spent on the run from authority. All it needs is a punchy theme tune and a boisterous yet edgy pub, and the BBC could film it as a soap opera.

Even so, Jesus still has a chance of a better life, as an apprentice to his role model “Joseph”, who runs a small woodwork business. But no: he shuns the opportunity, and spends the rest of his days wandering fecklessly around with his mates. To live, they rely on the kindness of strangers and the ability to catch huge numbers of fish, in blatant disregard of sustainability quotas. Obviously whacked out on substances, they entertain themselves by attempting to walk on water, as a result of which one of them nearly drowns.

As his notoriety grows, Jesus becomes a magnet for those who want something in return for nothing. When people can’t be bothered to make adequate health provision for their families, he provides an unlicensed back-street healing service. When a host’s supply of wine fails, he simply magics up some more, promoting drunken behaviour and defrauding the local treasury of much-needed alcohol duty. To pacify a hungry mob, he coerces a passing child into surrendering his hard-earned loaves and fishes. In one incident he perverts the course of justice by disrupting a perfectly legal stoning.

Finally he goes too far. He waltzes into the temple in Jerusalem, where a group of financial specialists is innocently devising ways of investing people’s money until it’s gone, and completely trashes the place. We don’t hear how the money-changers reacted, but I imagine they were incensed and went off to ply their trade in Egypt and Lebanon, devastating the local Judaean tax base and forcing the occupying Romans to close all the hospitals and schools. If there had been cashpoints in those days, they’d probably have shut them down to keep the public on their toes, just as RBS does today.

I trust that Dr Welby, as a member of the Parliamentary Banking Commission, will take note of this. By all means fret over poverty if you must, but mess with this country’s real power structures at your peril. Thanks to a recent investment in the meat industry, we currently have a number of horses’ heads in cold storage, and would be only too delighted to deliver one of them to a bedroom in Lambeth Palace.

Mind you, Jesus has got me on one point. I still don’t know how he did that coming back from the dead trick. But I’m sure it will turn out to be some elaborate form of benefit fraud.

The Eastleigh Aftermath

By common consent, the Eastleigh by-election was the most important in British history since the last one and until the next one. What did the main political parties learn from the campaign? Naturally I haven’t the slightest clue, but I’ve found some completely made-up representatives who can tell us.

Here’s a strategist for the victorious Lib Dems, Harley Worthitt:

What have we learned? Firstly, we’re the jammiest buggers in the universe. Secondly, controversy is red-hot sexy with voters! So we’re going to carry on engulfing the party in scandal. Vince Cable is masterminding a series of bank robberies, Ming Campbell has agreed to wage a campaign of terror on suburbia as a cat burglar and, subject to getting his visa approved, Danny Alexander will shortly be caught smoking crack in bed with Kim Jong Un.

But scandal isn’t enough. We must make sure we greet each crisis with a half-arsed, uncoordinated response. Fortunately, the party is stuffed with senior figures nobody’s ever heard of, who will spout any old nonsense for publicity. And Nick Clegg is a godsend: before you’ve finished telling him anything, he’s forgotten it in five different languages. We reckon he contradicts himself 70% of the time he opens his mouth, and if you exclude burping the ratio is even higher.

There may be a problem if one day we need to push Nick under a bus, but, even then, look at the standard of our up-and-coming talents! Vacillating jellies, to a man. Actually, some of them are women, but we advise them to dress butch to avoid getting groped.

For UKIP, Poppy Carter-Pettle:

IT’S A GREAT WIN FOR US, EVEN THOUGH SOMEBODY’S TOLD ME WE DIDN’T ACTUALLY GET THE BIGGEST NUMBER OF VOTES. WE TOOK SUPPORT FROM EVERY OTHER MAJOR PARTY, WHICH SHOWS WE DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT PROPER POLICIES BUT SHOULD JUST CONCENTRATE ON VAGUELY RACIST XENOPHOBIA. NIGEL FARAGE IS A GREAT LEADER AND WOULD LOOK MARVELLOUS IN UNIFORM OVERSEEING A MILITARY PARADE, UNLIKE THAT SLIMY IDIOT CAMERON.

THE RESULT PROVES THAT WE APPEAL TO ORDINARY PEOPLE, NOT “NUTJOBS”, WHICH WAS A VERY HURTFUL THING FOR CAMERON TO SAY. THAT WAS THE DAY I BURNT HIS PICTURE AND ADDED HIS NAME TO MY LIST. NEVER YOU MIND WHAT THE LIST IS FOR, YOU’LL FIND OUT SOON ENOUGH.

I WAS JUST SAYING TO MAGGIE THATCHER AT THE SHRINE I’VE MADE IN THE GUEST ROOM, WHERE SHE IS ALWAYS WELCOME TO VISIT EVEN THOUGH SHE DOESN’T ANSWER MY LETTERS, SOON THE DREAMS YOU NEVER SAW COME TRUE WILL BE FULFILLED. WE WILL RISE TO POWER AND A GREAT PAIR OF SCISSORS WILL DESCEND FROM HEAVEN AND GO SLICE, SLICE, SLICE ALL THE WAY ALONG THE ENGLISH CHANNEL AND

Thank you, Poppy.

Over to the Tories, and what’s this? It seems to be a man in a panda costume, who may or may not be Michael Gove.

Hello, boys and girls. Can you tell what sort of panda I am today? I’m a big sad panda, that’s what. You can’t see it because of the black patches round my eyes, but I’m crying. Why do you think that is?

No, Billy, it’s not because Tian-Tian won’t shag me. Go and stand on the naughty step. I’m crying because people in a place called Eastleigh have given what’s called a “protest vote”, which means they haven’t learned what we’re trying to teach them. We know what happens when we don’t learn things, don’t we, children? We lose marks, just like when the men at Moody’s took away our “AAA” mark and replaced it with “AA1”.

We don’t want to lose more marks, do we? Yes, we do give a toss, Jeremy. We want to be good boys and girls, so we’re not going to listen to those nasty “protest vote” people, and instead we’re going to go on making hard choices. That means some of those people will lose their jobs and have no money to spend on sweets, but they should have thought of that before they did their silly little protest.

Remember, children, Mr Cameron knows what’s best for you, and is the finest Headmaster you could ever have, except possibly for Mr Gove.

And here’s the Labour spin doctor, Primrose Hill:

Ciao! I’m sure you know how much we admire the electoral success of the Italian comedian, Beppe Grillo, which in English means “Joey Barbecue”. For the Eastleigh by-election we even nominated our own comedian, John O’Farrell, but he trailed in fourth. Since his candidacy was obviously laughable, the only possible explanation is that he wasn’t Italian enough.

So the order has gone out from Casa Milibandi for us to re-brand ourselves. Henceforth we’ll be the “Partito Labore”, buzzing about on scooters bringing la dolce vita to Gran Bretagna. It’s a perfect fit for us, since our MPs generally holiday in Tuscany, the Daily Telegraph says we’re pasta joke and our party leader is involved in a family feud.

Now everything will be more fun. As Chancellor, Eduardo Balloni will make his Budget easier to swallow by throwing in a complimentary glass of Prosecco and a rose for the ladies, and his gargantuan pepper mill will re-invigorate the saucy postcard industry overnight. Harrietta Harmani will attract more TV viewers to her relentless droning just because of her fashionable-sounding name. And Giovanni Prescotto is raring to grow a twirly moustache and learn the “Go Compare” song in time for the next election campaign.

Best of all: the people won’t be afraid to elect us, since they’ll know our government will collapse within six weeks!

Finally, representing the 47.2% of electors in Eastleigh who did not vote at all, here’s taxi driver Barry Cringe:

I ’ad that Grant Shapps and that George Osborne in the back of the taxi once. They didn’t want to pay, so I crashed into a wall and asked them for a million pounds, plus a million bonus ’cos I’d put the handbrake on at the last minute. They paid up immediately.

They ’ad to close one of the local hospitals afterwards to recoup the money, but that’s the only language they understand.

Trial By Jury

Those journalists slagging off the poor Vicky Pryce jurors for being muppets should learn some respect. Being involved in a high-profile trial, with so much depending on you, is a bewildering ordeal. Just think about how it must feel.

First, an official letter arrives. It’s obviously important, because there’s a small thunderclap as it hits the doormat and the dog eyes it suspiciously instead of chewing it into mush. But, try as you might, you can’t make head or tail of it. Fortunately your mate Gary, who works down the Citizens’ Advice and once went on Countdown, comes up trumps. He tells you that (1) you’re holding it the wrong way up, and (2) you’ve got a Responsibility to discharge. To help your preparation, he lends you his stock of John Grisham books and advises you to watch The Jeremy Kyle Show every day until further notice.

Some weeks later, you’re staring glassily at some mouthy trollop who’s sleeping with her pregnant mother’s boyfriend, when you observe that her voice has gone completely jangly and her face has morphed into a giant alarm clock. Then it dawns on you that your wife is beating you over the head with a pillow and screaming at you to get up. It’s your first morning in court, and you’re late.

There’s no time for a shower. You dab yourself down with a Wet Wipe, accidentally spray anti-perspirant in your eyes, brush your teeth with Savlon and make for the stairs, still attempting to zip your fly. Fifteen chaotic seconds later, you ease yourself painfully upright, noting gratefully that you’re still in one piece, which is more than can be said for the hat-stand. You throw a coat over your head, grab your eight-year-old son’s Spider-Man rucksack which is sitting next to your own, and hurtle through the front door.

At the station, you’re buggered if you can understand the platform information, so you have a chat with the ticket clerk. As the conversation develops, you sense that the punters queueing behind are beginning to murmur vague obscenities and chew their umbrellas in frustration. But twenty minutes isn’t particularly long, and you don’t want to catch the wrong train and end up in Brighton, do you?

You catch the wrong train and end up in Brighton.

Fortunately, a non-stop service swiftly brings you to London Bridge, from which the walk to your destination is mercifully brief. You take a seat, and for the first time the enormity of what you’re doing truly begins to overwhelm you. Everywhere you look, weirdly-dressed people are flitting pompously about, doing things that make sense to them but not to any normal person, and talking what appears to be bollocks. After half an hour, a tour guide helpfully points out that you’ve come to Southwark Cathedral by mistake, and that Southwark Crown Court is just down the road.

As you try to enter the court, your son’s novelty lunch box, shaped like a pineapple but interpreted by security staff as a giant grenade, causes the surrounding area to be evacuated for the rest of the morning. You buy a takeaway lunch at McDonalds just so that you can put the bag over your head to avoid identification. It’s a blessed relief when your name is finally called and you’re ushered in front of the bright lights of the courtroom.

But, of course, your troubles have only just begun. Now you have to get to grips with the legal terminology. What is “marital coercion”? A Cuban boxer? The use of kung-fu to get your way when your partner is being difficult? Do you have to be present to exercise it, or is a stiff email copied to your wife’s psychiatrist sufficient? Is drumming your fingers and rolling your eyes enough, or do you need a giant neon sign pointing to the document your wife must sign? Is it coercion if you engage Gareth Malone and the Military Wives to sing, “Why Are We Waiting”?

What about “reasonable doubt”? We’ve all heard about the man on the Clapham omnibus, but how reasonable is he going to be if the bus breaks down at Elephant and Castle and it’s pissing with rain? And what if the Angel Gabriel appears to you in a vision, presenting as ID his gym membership card from Heaven, and tells you the defendant is only guilty if the prosecuting counsel utters the secret word “xylophone”? Why would he go to all that trouble if it weren’t true?

Anyway, what is truth? Pontius Pilate asked that, but he was just having a laugh and had to get away for a cocktail party or something. We live in a country where the Office of Budget Responsibility still issues forecasts that the Government relies on, instead of doing stand-up at the Edinburgh Fringe. Can anything be stated to be objectively true, except that Richard Briers was a nice bloke?

Your head spinning, you realise how complicated all this stuff actually is.

And you look across at the jury and think, blimey, if it’s this bad for me as the judge, how difficult must it be for them?

Mantel Piece Theatre

A few days ago, while mucking around on Twitter, I inadvertently read a transcript of Hilary Mantel’s 5,500-word “Royal Bodies” lecture sponsored by the London Review of Books. At the time I thought it was a nuanced and complex discussion of the public’s objectification of royal princesses through the centuries.

But hats off to the Daily Mail for setting me straight! Now I see that it’s a hate-filled rant from a jealous old bag who should just get over herself.

You think the Duchess of Cambridge is “plastic”, do you, Mantel? For goodness sake, she and Wills went on honeymoon to the Seychelles! Would they have done that if there had been a danger of her melting in the sun? If your ivory tower research had advanced beyond boring stuff from FIVE HUNDRED YEARS AGO, you’d know that there hasn’t been a plastic Royal anywhere in the world since Prince Lego of Denmark, and that unfortunate incident in the kindergarten when a child accidentally swallowed three of his fingers.

“Painfully thin” when she first appeared on the scene, was she? That’s a taut stomach, that is. Anyway, it’s vital for prospective princesses to be skinny, so they can avoid paparazzi by hiding behind lamp-posts and squeezing through narrow spaces. Royal observers still shudder about the night Fergie pigged out on Krispy Kremes, got stuck in the Kensington Palace railings and had to be rescued by the SAS. Besides, Kate’s athletic, not weedy. Here’s a picture of her at her old school with a hockey stick. She’s the one on the right.

As for being “breeding stock”: well, of course we’d have been content for Wills and Kate to hold off the sprog-laying for a couple of years. But the thing is, Harry’s currently third in line to the throne, and he’s such a berk that it was vital to get him down the rankings as soon as possible. Of course, if the present Queen pegs out , we can always buy time by getting Helen Mirren to do the Christmas broadcast. But if she’s busy in Hollywood, and then Charles chokes on a Duchy Original hob-nob and Wills steers his helicopter into a ravine, we’d prefer the business of government to be scrutinised by someone under the influence of Peppa Pig rather than World of Warcraft.

And how dare you call her a “clothes horse”? Oh, I see that actually you didn’t - it was just the Daily Mail helpfully filling in the blanks. All right, then, “shop-window mannequin”. That’s so unfair: I’d pick Kate out of a line-up of mannequins at least eight times out of ten. Well, six if I’m not allowed to use the little bump and the crowd of photographers as clues. It was a mannequin sitting for that horrendous portrait, right?

Anyway, what’s wrong with wearing nice clothes, particularly if they have shiny bits that can keep people distracted while the Government gets on with buggering up the economy? Nothing whatsoever, which is why David Cameron was so quick to defend Kate today, even at the cost of a few minutes’ sucking up to Indian businessmen. “She’s a fantastic ambassador for Britain,” he gushed. Is this because of her History of Art degree or because she’s a prime example of well decorated posh totty? It doesn’t take 650 pages of pseudo-historical claptrap to work that one out, Hilary.

So it’s settled. Hilary Mantel should apologise and immediately resign as Booker and Costa title holder. And maybe, if we consider letting her near one of those prizes again, she should splash out on some decent clothes instead of those frumpy tents she’s favoured up till now.

Thankfully, her venomous onslaught didn’t seem in any way to faze Kate, who was radiant, beautifully dressed and exactly the right shape for someone at her stage of pregnancy as she visited a drug addiction centre and enquired of each client, “And what is it you do?” An ultra-scan would no doubt have shown the foetus smiling benignly.

We live in a tricky world, with big questions confronting us. And pesky intellectuals aren’t helping by challenging our firmly-held views with inconvenient facts. Thank goodness for the Daily Mail, which cuts through all the sophistry and makes sure we’re all screaming from the same hymn sheet. And at 60p per copy, it’s so much cheaper than listening to a taxi driver!

My Stingy Valentine

Chaps! In these straitened times, there’s no shame in needing to find a cheap way to celebrate St Valentine’s Day with your significant other.

The requirement can arise in so many ways. Perhaps, inspired by the Pope’s example, you’ve recently indicated to your boss that his capacious arse is just the place for him to stick his job. Perhaps the authorities are cutting your housing benefit, on the grounds that your ironing board could easily take the weight of a sickly child and the airing cupboard is therefore a bedroom. Or maybe you’re on the board of an investment bank, and you’re just waiting for the taxpayer bailout to come through so that you can get your bonus.

Love means never having to say you’re sorry, but let’s not hurry to put that to the test. Here are some handy hints to help you to provide romantic treats for your sweetheart without plunging your life into a maelstrom of Dickensian penury and recrimination.

Perhaps you’d like to say it with flowers, but can’t quite stretch to the £3.99 Shell will charge you for saying, “You’re a bit past it and smell slightly of exhaust fumes.” What other options do you have? It’s no use trying to nick roses from your neighbour’s garden in the middle of the night, unless you enjoy crouching in the freezing cold, fiddling blindly with secateurs, while thorns slash your arms to ribbons and an urban fox chews your leg.

Instead, for your floral needs, why not visit a branch of Barclays Bank? As part of their new “Look, We’re Not Bastards Any More” campaign, they’re currently strewing garlands in the path of anyone who visits them. Staff in Care Bear outfits will show you to a comfy chair and massage your feet while you enjoy soothing music and choose from an extensive complimentary wine list. Just make sure you grab all the flowers you can and leg it, before they get to the part where the chair tips backwards and propels you into a dungeon to be sacrificed to Beelzebub.

For that uniquely special gift, it simply has to be Poundland. Not because their stuff is cheap, but because their slave labour workfare staff are too bloody de-motivated to pursue you at more than a gentle jog when you shoplift the hell out of them. Take a bin bag and fill it with as much tat as you can, for if your gift is going to spark any luuuurve action tonight, it sure won’t be on the basis of its excellent quality. Remember to include in your haul string and sticky-back plastic, in case you need to combine several pieces of junk in a greater whole, in the style of Blue Peter. And you’ll need a multi-pack of Love Hearts, so that you have a good supply of insincere romantic twaddle with which to counter your beloved’s inevitable scorn.

Unless discussions of free collective bargaining and the role of the TUC in the post-war consensus gets your partner all frisky, you probably won’t want to watch Harold Wilson Night on BBC Parliament. And, if you’re like me, Tuesday’s abortive pancake-making exercise has put the kitchen beyond use until the insurance claim is settled. So you need to find a local restaurant for dinner à deux, which at least offers the consolation that your growing disenchantment with one another will be mirrored in couples all around you. But where can you go without your wallet screaming in agony as each banknote is viciously ripped from its grasp?

Fortunately, there’s an answer in the growing number of eating establishments springing up across Britain that serve horsemeat. Usually their names are a dead giveaway, such as the Nag’s Head or the Marquis of Bute. Horse is remarkably cheap and, since no Cabinet minister has yet been seen force-feeding it to his blameless daughter, we can still be confident that it’s safe to eat. The cancer-causing drugs are present only in tiny amounts, until next week’s hasty revision when the senior scientist at the Food Standards Agency returns from holiday. They're also eliminated from the body very quickly, especially if your meal gives you the trots.

Gentlemen, romance is all about creativity. Delight your other half with your innovative approach to the day. Shower her with affection, which is beyond price. Show that, when smirking millionaires tell us that money isn’t everything, they’re actually dead right. That will win her over every time, and set you on the road to uninterrupted romantic bliss!

At least until the weekend, when she speaks to her mother, realises that you’re a pathetic loser and goes off with Jeff from Accounts, who has a sports car.

A Catastrophic Decision

When the proposals were first announced I was concerned, along with many others. In the following weeks, as various conflicting views were aired at great length and volume on the Internet, I saw nothing to ease my qualms. Finally, after a lengthy and tortuous debate, a decision was made yesterday that will change the world forever.

Hasbro, the makers of the board game Monopoly, have retired the “iron” token used by players and replaced it with a cat.

I’m shocked and saddened by this decision. A game with which I grew up has been completely ruined by being forced through the merciless prism of public opinion. At a stroke my childhood has been destroyed and an age of innocence cast into the abyss.

For me, the iron was at the heart of traditional Monopoly, symbolising as it did domestic order, neatness and control. How is the property magnate to display his authority and power without a shirt freshly ironed that very morning by his wife? How is he to impress his mistress if the hotel bed-sheets haven’t had every crinkle steamed away? How can he brazenly open his Daily Telegraph in another man’s face if it limply sags away because no-one has properly attended to its folds?

With an iron as your token, you could proceed smoothly along the board, metaphorically flattening your opponents’ pitiful attempts to prosper. With sufficient sleight of hand you could even nudge their hotels off their territory in the direction of your own Whitechapel Road gentrification project. The iron was solid, dependable and predictable. No surprise, therefore, that it’s fallen victim to trendy social attitudes, beginning with the sad introduction of the Corby Trouser Press and reaching a sickening nadir with easy-iron polyester.

Cats are simply wrong for Monopoly. It’s obvious to anyone who has an iota of respect for the rules. Apart from the furballs, the little pools of sick and general allergy issues with hairs, they don’t have the correct attitude for the game.

While your opponents are busy hoovering up houses and hotels all over the board, they’ll be distracting you by rubbing themselves against your legs and miaowing plaintively. When not falling asleep on top of the Community Chest, they’ll wander wherever the hell they like and then plonk a dead bird in the middle of the Angel, Islington. And have you tried getting the bloody things to pass “Go” when they don’t want to?

Monopoly will never be the same again. With their built-in sense of entitlement, the cats will soon become fat. Then the bank errors will always be in their favour, they’ll lap up all the “Free Parking”, and as for “Go to jail, go directly to jail”, don’t make me laugh. The traditional street names won’t be enough for them and they’ll treat your puny plastic buildings with nothing but contempt. Before long they’ll build their own enclave of skyscrapers called “Canary Wharf” under the dining table, then sit there all day driving you nuts with their purring and sinking their claws into your arm if you interfere.

Once you’ve re-defined Monopoly in this way, anything can happen. How long before tokens are allowed to include man-eating tigers, velociraptors and talking meerkats? Will the game be taken over by the climate change lobby, so that you’re forced to erect plastic wind turbines on Mayfair? What if Herman van Rompuy and his chums force us to replace it with a game called EUtopia, where the players just throw money into the middle of the board and Spaniards and Greeks set fire to it?

What about the effect on other games? I’m used to my pieces of pie in Trivial Pursuit, and I don’t want to see them replaced by fairy cakes. I like a bit of chess, too, and I’m keeping my eye on the bishops to ensure they don’t start growing bumps in the wrong places. And when Colonel Mustard charges into the library to dispatch his unfortunate victim, I’ll be annoyed to find his lead piping has just turned into a giant sausage.

When I emerged from my underground shelter this morning, I was amazed to find the world was still in one piece and that I wasn’t clinging to a bare lump of rock hurtling into space. But I checked again with the wizened old crone at the edge of the village, and she still says no good will come of this. There will be misery and pain, with people in chains forced into hard physical labour by satanic monsters with whips, and I’m not just talking about Westminster Council’s new homeless policy.

The hell with it. I’m off to marry my sister and live in a ménage à trois with a horse. We’ve got to make the most of these remaining days, after all.

The Home Office Advises

An obliging Whitehall mole, tagged in a number of interesting photos on my hard drive, has passed me this working draft of Home Office advice to Eastern Europeans planning to migrate to the UK.

Dear Bulgarians and Romanians,

We hear from acquaintances in Brussels that you are considering inundating us with your presence. It goes without saying that we’ll be delighted to see you. However, before you cram all your possessions into a battered suitcase, please take time to read the following handy guide to life in the UK. We trust that it will assist you in making the correct decision.

ARRIVAL

Your acclimatisation begins at Immigration, with UK public services at their very best: massive queues, screaming children, incipient despair, indifferent officials and a faint smell of wee. Before leaving the airport, be sure to purchase a sturdy umbrella. For onward transit, the choice is yours: knackered, hopelessly delayed public transport or getting stuck in a tailback with a talkative, racist taxi driver. When you finally reach your destination, take a good look around. See all the fat people? That’s you in six months, that is.

CURRENCY

The UK will be using the pound sterling until 2017, when it will be replaced by an emergency barter system. From 2019, the mode of exchange will be determined locally by criminal gang lords. Different arrangements may apply in Scotland from 2014, but they’ll probably find some way to screw that up too.

ACCOMMODATION

Unless you’re selling a country estate back home, costs will initially be a problem. In the more rain-affected areas, an inflatable dinghy and tarpaulin may be the best option. Or, with so many businesses going bust, you could acquire an old filing cabinet that would snugly fit someone in the foetal position. If you do ever make it on to the property ladder, please bear in mind that we’ll be building a thundering great high-speed railway through your living room in 20 years’ time.

FINDING WORK

If you achieve this, do let us know. We’ll probably want to feature you in a party political broadcast.

YOUR LOCAL COMMUNITY

In the UK, local government exists to give status to busybodies whose worthless opinions would otherwise be ignored, to penalise drivers for parking their cars, and to generally bugger everyone about. The council gives you several differently coloured bins into which to sort your household rubbish, then if you put something in the wrong bin they force you to eat it. They used to operate leisure services, but these all ran out of money or were burned down by vandals, although you can still enjoy an open-air swim in some of the larger potholes. In the North, street cleaning has been abolished, so please carry a large mallet at all times to keep the rats under control.

SCHOOLS

Free schools, academies, comprehensives - it’s all a mess, really, isn’t it? We’ve tried everything and still don’t have a scooby-doo how to teach the little brats to read and write. God, we even rig the exams and half of them fail. If you can rustle up the money, you may as well go private; your children will end up as arrogant little twerps, but at least they won’t get hooked on crack and they’ll have a fighting chance of being able to afford your care home fees.

SHOPPING

The typical UK High Street consists of five nail parlours, a Subway, a Lottery outlet and a shop where everything costs 97p, following the closure of the 98p shop last week. The other properties have been either boarded up or commandeered by feral squatters. Everything else you’ll ever need can be found in giant barns on the edge of town or in cyberspace, at prices you can easily afford. Except, of course, for the ultimate price of your soul.

CULTURE

The country of Shakespeare, Dickens and The Two Ronnies has a rich and varied cultural history, but who gives a toss about that when people can watch a talking wombat on YouTube?

THE NHS

The NHS looks after you from cradle to grave, and we’re working hard to make that span as brief as possible. Our hospitals represent the cutting edge in unsympathetic caring techniques, wilful negligence and antibiotic-resistant infections. And, if we find any that don’t, we make sure they get closed down for spurious financial reasons! Don’t bother joining the Twitter-organised protest marches, because you’ll only catch your death of cold in the pouring rain.

THE POLICE

We know, they’re bastards, aren’t they? We’re the bloody Government, and they’re even bastards to us. On top of that, we’ve just cut starting salaries for new recruits by £4,000, so it’s peanuts and monkeys. Try to fall down gracefully when they shove you into a puddle, and avoid sudden moves if you don’t want to be tasered.

WEATHER

Did we mention that it’s always pissing with rain? Well, in case we didn’t, it is. Apart from when it’s snowing, or blowing a gale, or both.

We hope you find this review useful. We should also warn you that, if you come to the UK and then change your mind, there is a fairly long queue of people waiting to leave. This includes several Cabinet ministers who need an escape route if society completely collapses. We wonder if you can recommend any attractive parts of your homeland, perhaps in the vicinity of the Black Sea?

Yours truly,

Theresa and the Home Office Team

P.S. Looked out of the window, and it’s raining! Just saying.

The Great Global Bake-Off

In a glittering Davos function suite, Prince Andrew works his personal magic, galumphing from group to group cracking excruciating jokes. Guests turn to each other and ask, in a bewildered mix of languages, “Who is this arse?” His aides cover their eyes and wish his next abseiling stunt could be down the inside of a volcano.

Although he stopped being the UK’s Special Trade Representative in July 2011, when Vince Cable suggested his most effective contribution to inward investment might be to piss off and keep his trap shut, the former Randy Andy still likes to keep handy. He may not be a whiz at hard sums, but he can recognise an unlimited ski pass and a taxpayer-funded week in a luxury chalet, so an annual appearance at the World Economic Forum is right up his street. Luckily for us, this particular gathering possesses some unique features that make it the perfect environment for a complete doughball.

The public side of the World Economic Forum, with its empty rhetoric and staged panel discussions, is no different from other summits. It’s the hidden part, where governments grovel before big business in search of cash, that contains the twist. Even multi-nationals eventually find constant sycophancy boring, so they treat Davos as a form of annual light relief. Instead of having the world’s elected representatives fawning over them, they command them to compete for their favour using culinary skills.

That's right, folks, the World Economic Forum is just a front for a Great Global Bake-Off.

Over the years, many world leaders have been significant innovators at the event. Mrs Thatcher was famed for her Lemon Drizzle Cake, a mixture of bitter fruit and poor people's tears that she personally shoved down your throat until you choked. Bill Clinton, no matter how sticky things got, always ended up saving the day with a perfect waffle. Silvio Berlusconi’s “Bunga Bunga Cheesy Shapes”, produced by his all-female staff between maths lessons, were an audacious fusion of pastry-cooking and pornography. On the fashion side, Tony Blair’s pioneering of the Teflon body-suit allows him still to remain at large despite all the damage he’s caused to other people’s kitchens.

Sadly, this year the UK did not cover itself in glory. The week started badly when David Cameron upset other EU countries by cherry-picking, which he was forced to do because he had so many fruitcakes to deal with at home. It then became clear that he didn’t know what he was going to bake or what ingredients to use, and that his instructions consisted of “in, out, shake it all about” written on the back of an envelope. This confused his audience so much that when he said, “Wake up and smell the coffee,” they walked out because they thought it was time for elevenses.

Angela Merkel, the EU’s official mum, made supportive noises, suggesting she might allow Dave to help later with her Black Forest Gateau, and to lick the spoon afterwards if he behaved himself. But there was nothing in the world that could support George Osborne’s sponge, which was supposed to be rising nicely by now, but remained as flat as a Frisbee and half as tasty. The International Monetary Fund, which has just published a new recipe book contradicting everything in the old one, advised him to try using baking powder instead of sawdust. Unfortunately, sawdust is the only thing George has in his head, so that ain’t gonna happen.

At Davos no prizes are handed out, because big business didn’t get where it is today by being irrationally generous, but observations are made and actions invariably follow. If your millionaire shortbread sets the fat cats’ endorphins flowing, it could mean a new car plant, with literally dozens of minimum wage jobs for you to top up with taxpayer money. If they break their teeth on one of your rock cakes, 5,000 IT positions are immediately outsourced to Bhutan. You’d better take care with your pastry, because if it’s too flaky your economy will rapidly go the same way.

This year’s main talking points?

• Dmitri Medvedev, one of Russia’s rotating Prime Ministers, at whose “Blini Roulette” stall one blini in every thousand was guaranteed to be laced with polonium. Company bosses commended this as a highly cost-effective alternative to a redundancy program.

• Henry Kissinger, who at the ripe old age of 89 gave a sparkling address on how to jazz up trifles using napalm.

• Alex Salmond, who set out with a suitcase full of Tunnock’s Caramel Wafers to show off the culinary potential of an independent Scotland, but ate them all before he’d left Glasgow Airport.

And so the limousines draw away from the charming ski resort for another year, with the hum of the engines only just masking the twang of trouser elastic. Inside, the fat cats will no doubt be purring with satisfaction at another week of improving the state of their world.

For the rest of us, it’s downhill all the way.

A View From The Fridge

For those of us whose sole contribution to society is carping about things, last week was a bitter disappointment. The arctic hell gripping Britain was largely confined to the provinces, where the people’s intrinsic grittiness helps them to gain traction on icy surfaces and, anyway, nothing of economic importance happens. Hatless, under-dressed TV news reporters wasted breath on shivery monologues about how impossible life had become, as members of the public kept walking, jogging, sledging and driving past, waving cheerily and whistling tunes that sustained their grandparents during the Blitz.

This week, however, Jack Frost’s icy caress has spread to the South East, and spectacular incompetence has duly burst into life on all sides. At the refugee camp formerly known as Heathrow, passengers have been subjected to a harsh lesson about always including spare underpants in your hand luggage. On the railway lines that stretch out from London for mile after mile until they hit the sea or property prices become affordable, jam-packed commuters have remained stuck behind clueless signals for hours, with nowhere to bury their faces but the Metro or their neighbour’s armpit.

The mechanical and logistical challenges of multiple snowflakes aren’t the problem. We’ve all come to realise that snow is cold, the yellow version should be avoided at all costs and you shouldn’t frolic naked in winter weather unless you’re entering a Smurf lookalike competition. And, as Brits inured to gallant failure, we’re actually fairly touched by the concept of “The Little Engine That Couldn’t Quite”. What we don’t understand is how, when the mercury drops too low, airlines and railway operators completely lose the ability to communicate with us.

Could Professor Brian Cox possibly explain to me what the hell happens to travel information when temperatures fall below zero? It looks like the “Paddington Uncertainty Principle”. The departure board states that your train, like all the others, is “Delayed”, but it’s standing at a platform, full of naively hopeful people like you. Is it leaving soon, is there another one yet to arrive which will mysteriously leave before it, or is it going to be cancelled because you’re a loser? Somehow all three outcomes exist simultaneously. Only when you get on board, and the doors close, do you discover that your actions have in fact triggered a previously absent fourth outcome, which is that they’ve suddenly switched the service to "first stop Reading" when you wanted to get off at Maidenhead.

In other areas, cold snaps seem to bring out information that you didn’t necessarily want to know. “This freeze will precipitate a Triple-Dip Recession,” crow the TV doom merchants, popping up like goose pimples. Sure enough, all down the High Street, retailers are rushing to the front door to welcome their first customer of the day, only to find it’s the postman battling through the snow to deliver a final demand. But there are surely positives too: on the flip side, we can all think of two or three managers whose accidental confinement to a railway siding for a couple of days would boost their staff’s productivity no end.

Nor is it very long before the climate change deniers are out in force. “Look,” they say, “that’s a snowman over there and I’ve just had to use a stiff brush to clear my path! This proves that global warming is a pack of lies foisted on us by government conspiracy! No, the bushfires in Tasmania don’t count. I have it on good authority that Lance Armstrong was storing some of his pants there.”

Boris Johnson, who has CCTV cameras positioned all round the M25 to spot any bandwagons he can jump on, has used the good orifices of the Daily Telegraph to cite this week’s snow as a reason to be sceptical about climate change. There’s a chance, he suggests, that the extreme weather is something to do with sunspots. Well, Mr Mayor, it’s common knowledge that you have a strategic need to ingratiate yourself with the idiot wing of the Tory Party, if that isn’t too tautological. There's a chance, I suggest, that your extreme views are something to do with tosspots.

If Boris had a desire to re-educate himself on such matters, he’d be wasting his time knocking on the door of any schools, because they’d probably be shut. This is because of the Elf and Safety rule that, in bad weather, the last place you want unsupervised children is in a nice warm building. Far better to have them out in the freezing cold, sledging down black runs into heavy traffic, walking over the thin ice of the local pond and chucking snowballs filled with lumps of gravel at one another. Who cares if the little bleeders knock ten bells out of themselves, as long as the local authority doesn’t get sued?

In the end, we should welcome the present wintry blast as a means of stiffening our national resolve, of putting some lead in our collective pencil, oo-er missus, to enable us to cope with tough times. So let’s wrap up well, mind our footing and always be shovel-ready.

We’re a long, long way from the epic winters of 1947 and 1963. In fact, looking at the state of the economy, I’d say we’re probably still in the early 1930s.