My brand new parlour game is called OPPOSITES -
STUPID and it will save your sanity. If only I’d thought of this before. How easy. How
obvious.
I have bemoaned a sense of living in a parallel
universe before on this blog. You look around you and your eyes, ears and
common sense tell you one thing but the government and elements of the pop
press tell you the opposite. It’s like standing in your living room looking out
of the window at an ice storm while a firm, jolly, slightly condescending but
insistent voice right behind you is booming out that THE SUN IS SHINING AND
IT’s A BEAUTIFUL DAY. The voice is so unrelenting that you begin to doubt
yourself.
The oft repeated and up-beat statement, there are
more people in work than ever before, should no longer fry your brain. You no
longer need to feel dizzy as you contemplate the number of adults you know who
can’t get a proper job or are on a dead-end zero hours contract or are working
at many many levels below their ability because even though they have £60k of
student debt having obtained (for example) a good science degree, they can only
find work as a part time pool attendant (like the son of a friend of mine). You
no longer even need to consider the millions in employment who, nevertheless,
rely on benefits to live.
Don’t worry if, contrary to the government
declaiming that the economy is in good shape, you are now paying £1.40 for an
item in the supermarket that 14 months ago cost you 98p.
The
Brexit vote was the result of the democratic will of the people
is a mesmeric mantra for both The Government and The Opposition (I don’t
think I need bother putting in the ‘so-called’ prefix there). So, if you squirm
every time you hear that phrase because you can see with your human eyes and
your developed Homo-sapiens brain that Brexit was the result of xenophobia,
stupidity, blatant racism, lies, an opposition vacuum and a lot of people not
paying attention – worry no more. Just play OPPOSITES - STUPID.
It works with government.
Heading up our 3-day-old road kill of an
administration is the self-proclaimed Strong and Stable leader Theresa May. She
is the weakest wobbliest most ineffectual premier besides whom a bowl of
blancmange would look prim-ministerial. But in our new O-S game even she is a
logical manifestation.
Boris Johnson is a racist buffoon whose mouth is the
gateway to such a bottomless pit of stupidity and vile, privileged rot one can
only imagine that what lies within bears some resemblance to the swamp that
gave us The Creature from the Black Lagoon. But when you are playing OPPOSITES-
STUPID it entirely makes sense to have a tactless, idiotic clown representing us around the globe.
Michael Gove is currently Environment Secretary but
was formerly Brexit flag-waver and would-be leader. He is the guy who sneered
at the over-reliance on ‘experts’. Well, Britain is most assuredly cured of
anything that looks like expertise now.
Last weekend Gove happily and
moronically joined Boris Johnson in their favourite game of foot-in-mouth thus
causing dangerous diplomatic difficulties for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British
citizen whose life hangs in the balance in an Iranian jail.
Our new Defence Secretary knows nothing about the
military and nothing about ministerial representation in The House. But (see
last week’s post) it’s ok now to learn on the job even if that job is head of the nation’s defence. Yes, with O-S it starts to seem less and less odd
that these incompetent morons who you would not normally leave in charge of the
cat are running (ruining!) our lives.
Our Brexit Secretary David Davis (and let’s face it
if you come from a family that can’t even come up with more than one name for
their offspring – what hope is there) is a gurning mediocrity. And when playing
OPOSITES - STUPID it makes sense that a gurning mediocrity with an apparently
limited vocabulary is in charge of the most important negotiation Britain has
seen since Chamberlain arrived back from visiting Hitler claiming “peace in our
time”
Liam Fox – darling of the right – was embroiled in a
money+favours-for-a-chum-while-abroad scandal. So, why shouldn’t he be
Secretary of State for International Trade? Why should we be incredulous when
he says that a trade deal with the EU should be “the easiest in history”
Then set against this three-wheel supermarket
trolley of incompetents we have the so-called opposition in the form of (oh
God) Jeremy Corbyn.
Yes – Corbyn - the man who failed to unequivocally campaign for Remain
– or anything else comprehensible for that matter - because he didn’t really
know if he was for or against the EU. He had a vague idea from his (seemingly
never ending) student politics days that he thought the EU was a capitalist
conspiracy damaging the good old British workers’ jobs. Now he just stands up
and goes neh neh nene neh to anything the government says and he’s in a bind
because – for example – as anyone with three brain cells could have told him –
the NHS – Labour’s touchstone when all else fails to rally the troops – is totally
fucked without EU workers. He is, as Opposition Leader what King Canute was to the
rising tide. But yes – when playing OPPOSITES - STUPID even Jeremy Corbyn makes
sense.
Thank goodness that’s sorted…
*
Re: the latest tax dodging revelations of the rich,
famous and morally grubby The Herald published another short letter of mine on
that subject
*
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