back of a spreadsheet; back of the net

LIke a Janus faced Casandra the Tartan Shortbread Institute of Scotology has been retained by John McTernan to run the Labour Party's election campaign peer in to both the future and the past and divine 25 True Facts about the second May government

1. In an echo of the '45 Atlee government May's Queen's Speech will be accompanied by a rousing rendition of the traditional Tory favourite, The Sash My Father Wore.
2. Angus Robertson and Alex Salmond will be elevated to the Lords like a modern day Statler and Waldorf. They will strike down on Teressa May with great vengance and furious anger. The Daily Mail will declare them to be "enemies of the people".
3. Every Tory MP over the age of 65 will be wrapped in cotton wool and kept in a quiet dark room away from rich food, sharp objects and difficult questions. Tory MP's under 35 will keep away from their cocaine dealer and dominatrices. That will hurt them a lot more than it hurts me.
4. Gina Miller will win the first by-election of the new Parliament, defeating Zac Goldsmith (Indepedent), by 45 votes and one runway. Claude Junker will die of laughter.
5. Farage! Nigel Farage! will re-enter British politics in England's greatest hour of need, a cross between Churchill and Edward the VIII. Pint in one hand, cigarette in the other and clutching the hijab he braverly wrestled from a terrified resident of Bradford in order to protect her from her own false consciousness and internalisation of the patriarchy he will illuminate British politics like the Sun King. He will never, ever, ever become an MP. Ever. Baldrick has more chance. A sex tape of him and Katie Hopkins shagging under the coats at the Briebart Christmas party at Nakatomi Towers will be released under the title Die Hard with a Brexit. Is that what you want? Because that's what will happen.
6. Scotland will beat England at football after England score an own goal from the penalty spot.
7. Jeremy Corbyn will set the Tory Party some really difficult geography homework. Questions will include - Where is the Suez Canal? How many counties are there in Ulster? Where can you park an illegally funded battle bus in Thannet South? What does the Scotish Navy keep at Holy Loch? How many runways does Heathrow Airport have?
8. Arlene Foster will declare herself to be a bloody difficult woman. The Daily Mail will declare her to be "an enemy of the people."
9. An ill-judged attempt at cross-bench reconcilliation will see Sir Mhari Black knighted but later arrested for headbutting William Rees-Mogg after he propositions her in Classical Greek. It will be the most shared video on the BBC website of 2017.
10. A wall or possibly a tunnel will be built along the Irish border - Sein Fein will pay.
11. Tony Blair will challenge Farage! Nigel Farage! for the leadership of the UKIPs. The much coveted leadership position of Britain's favourite far-right home for nutjobs and racists will eventually be held in tandem by Natalie Bennet and George Galloway under some sort of job share arrangement. They will be declared "enemies of the people" on alternate days.
12. Smarting from their shock winning of most seats in Scotland and humiliated by their second best result ever Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP will turn away from talk of #indyref2 and get back to the day job, which in their case is preparing Scotland for a second independence referendum.
13. Philip May will consider redecorating Number Ten but unable to get Corbyn to agree on a colour scheme he will abandon the project on the grounds of there being no point, after all they're moving soon.
14. Several Tories will suffer self-inflicted injuries stabbing themselves in the back whilst vying for an opportunity to betray Boris Johnson. Boris Johson will be arrested by MI5 after breaking in to Number 10 to measure for curtains.
15. After not U-turning on a snap election and not U-turning on the dementia tax and not U-turning on National Insurance May's strong and stable government will dilligently pursue her "secret" plan for a Die Hard Brexit. Oh yes they will. They will. Stop sniggering. It's not like she campaigned for Remain before the referendum is it? She's never going to betray Johnson, Davis and Doctor Liam Fox or the trust of the English people. Not! Going! To! Happen!
16. The repair bill for the Palace of Westminister and Buckingham Palace will be so large that both buildings will abandoned. The Queen will move in to David Cameron's duck house. Parliament will relocate to Jeremy Corbyn's shed so long as Ken Livingston can rehome his newts.
17. Teressa May will enact the Conservative Party manifesto of re-nationalising the railways, ending tuition fees, bringing in a £10 minimum wage and No Surrender.
18. Pete Wishart will go missing at sea whilst sailing a ship called Dignity the wrong way through the Minch. Ruth Davidson will be arrested riding a riding a bison called Cruelty the wrong way down the Euro-tunnel. She will be sobered up, wiped down and placed in the professional care of Patrick Harvie. Harvie wil relish his new day job as a celebrity social worker. The bison will be declared "an enemy of the people".
19. Gangs of university students will intimidate Tory MP's by hanging round outside their offices defiantly showing them their postal vote applications and copies of Pepper vs Hart.
20. In the spirit of One Nation Toryism for which she is justly famed Teressa May will commision a super-group of the remaining Smith, Billy Bragg, the Pogues, Kate Bush and Sir Andrew Lloyd Weber to produce a new arrangement of the Famine Song to become Britain's new national anthem. The Daily Mail will declare them "enemies of the We Are The People."
21. 47 Daily Mail journalists will be killed in what, at first, is thought to be a jihadi attack on the newspaper's head office. Police will later confirm that Paul Dacre exploded upon discovering that the UK isn't going to leave the Single Market after all.
22. May's Brexit plan will leak more often than the Labour Party manifesto and David Davis' pants. Mostly it will be leaked by the European negotiators reporting back to the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament as they are legally obliged to. No one in Europe will think this is strange.
23. A new centrist party will form from a merger of the Lib Dems, The Yorkshire Party and the Provisional wing of the BBC and claim the fertile centre ground of British politics. In the third general election of 2017 a combination of viral targetted Facebook attack adds and a Mary Berry cookery book fundraiser will see them break through and win Clacton from the SNP.
24. The issue of same-sex marrages in Northern Ireland wil be settled by an arm wrestling match between Nigel Dodds and Ruth Davidson's bison. As a result of the contest LGBT humans of all genders and none will be welcome in a progressive Northern Ireland free of the reactionary and bigoted politics of the past.
25. Ken Clarke will finally succeed Teressa May as Prime Minister, leading a government of national unity. He will call a snap election in January 2018. And lose.

With negotiations to secure Britain's future in Europe due to conclude Any. Day. Now. No. Honestly. This. Time. We Mean. It. and flush from out unimpeachably correct predictions about what life in Scotland will be like following the Independence Referendum of 2014 Next Year the Shortbread Institute for the Study of Scotology offers this handy primer for the conduct of the upcoming EU Referendum.

1. The Yes / Remain / Stay / Be In campaign will be named "Stay! in Europe for Britain in Europe Not Out of Europe.vote." The three campaigns for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union will be named "Brexit - True Patriots for England", "Leave.NotSureHowTheInternetWorks.EU" and "Farage. Nigel Farage!” The respective leaders of the campaigns will be Angela Merkel, Boris Johnson, Jeremy Clarkson and Donald Carswell.

2. The theme tune for the Yes / Remain / Stay / Be In campaign will be a mash up of Ode to Joy, Whatever You Want by Status Quo and 500 Miles by the Proclaimers sung (i) by a reformed Smiths. The three Remain / Out / Go / Breville Toasted Sandwich Maker campaigns opt for respectively, the Dam Busters March, the Great Escape and Two World Wars and One World Cup Do Dah, Do Dah. The actual theme tune for the referendum will be the Hokey Cokey (ii) sung by the ghost of David Bowie. Is that what you want? Because that’s what’s going to happen!

3. Upon conclusion of the negotiations in [insert name of second tier European city] the outcome will be simultaneously hailed as a triumph and a Victory in Europe for Britain in Europe Not Out of Europe and denounced as a near treasonous capitulation to the dastardly Huns by each of the Out / Go /No / Don't Stay / Exit / Leave campaigns. One week after the document is agreed not one single person other than William Rees-Mogg will know or care what the content is and the referendum campaign will continue to be fought on the grounds of immigration, jobs, free movement of goods, Britain’s failed relationship with its own post-imperial past and whether that nice David Cameron performed a sex act too disgusting to mention in a family blog with That Pig . Do Dah. Do Dah. (iii)

4. Ex pat gangsters on the Costa de Colombo concerned at the impact of a leave vote on hard working British pensioners living in tax exile in Spain will make the East End of London an offer it can't refuse to vote In / Stay / Status Quo. Barbara Windsor will declare them to be wonderful people really, the salt of the earth.

5. The referendum will in no way be fought on the grounds of whether Britain won the Second World War or the brilliance of Russian linesmen. Clarkson and Corbyn will clash over whether Hurst’s second goal crossed the line or not.

6. Donald "the Evidence" Trump will tweet "Britain" alongside a picture of a German Panzer III and Jeb Bush looking mystified. The actual relevance of this to anything will be hotly disputed by media commentators, the Literati, the Twitterati and He, Himself, The Donald for decades to come.

7. The real reasons that Ola Jordan and Christina Rhianoff left Strictly Come Dancing will be discovered to be concerns that they will be affected by the revocation of the free movement of workers and replaced by British Dancers for British Jobs and both Ola and Christina are dirty, dirty, dirty foreigners. Dirty. Oh, so dirty.

8. Farage! Nigel Farage will be the main loser. If the vote goes against the EU his entire political raison d'etre will be extinguished in a Phyric victory of Ozymandian proportions. If the vote is for the Stay-tus Quo a career founded upon the promise but not the delivery of a decisive EU referendum will flounder. In either case he will be revealed to be an utter cock.

9. The EU flag will be revealed to be #blackandblue and #whiteandgold

10. Following his Defeat-Victory Nigel Farage will lock himself in an Edinburgh pub and issue a Unilateral Declaration of Independence and lead the pub out the EU. The saloon bar, citing a material change in circumstances, will issue its own declaration of independence from the pub. (iv)

11. Polish workers in the UK will stage a 48 hour strike in support of the EU, recognition of their crucial contribution to the UK economy and their rights under Article 45 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The strike will be 100% effective. So effective in fact that the entire economic activity of the UK will be shut down for a two day period, including all media outlets attempting to report on the referendum, the strike or Nigel! Nigel Farage! The period will become known as the Lost Weekend or Stracony Weekend.

12. Millions of Europeans will “Love Bomb” South East England with a flood of phone calls begging them not to Leave. Baffled residents of the Home Counties will be unable to cope with being loved by an actual human being who is not being paid. Enterprising Indian call centres will adopt unconvincing French or German accents in an attempt to connect with British citizens to ask them a few market research questions. (v)

13. Gordon Brown will be rolled out at the last minute with a Vow on the front page of the Daily Mail. By 2030, Vow still undelivered, the readers of the Daily Mail will begin to realise that Gordon Brown as former Prime Minister, former Leader of the Labour Party and former MP for Central Belt North and The Town Nick Robinson Can’t Pronounce actually has no constitutional status whatsoever. IndyRef Zoomers will chant “We Told You So” in George Square. This will be blamed on BritNats and skinheads.

14. The Apprentice will be reconfigured as a competition between In / Stay / Remain / Yes / Och Aye candidates and candidates from Out / Leave / Nay / Avaunt. Key tasks, such as the day trip to Calais to buy things, the task where different international items have to be purchased, the task where British products are sold at an international product fair and the task where London property has to be sold to foreigners will highlight what a totally and utterly insane idea it is to leave our largest export market, the largest market in the world and rely for our economic prosperity on the good will of a bunch of poor countries who don’t like us because we conquered and enslaved them 200 years ago. Jeremy Clarkson will counter this by attempting to drive a Land Rover Defender across the English Channel. He will be rescued by a Spanish fishing boat. Baroness Karren, Lady Brady will never receive so much exposure before or since. Anyone who doubts that this is a good thing will be invited to move to the EU member state of their choice forthwith. Or the member state of the European Economic Area if they are prepared to accept EU rules and standards.

15. Norway will once again become the European country most people claim to want to emulate.

16. The Tory Party In Wing will unleash on the Tory Party Out Wing exactly the same sort of post-truth evidence-free vitriolic hate campaign that they traditionally reserve for the likes of Kinnock, Miliband and Corbyn. After being on the receiving end of that the Continuity Euro-sceptics will declare “Never Again” and, crying manly tears of grief and noble despair lay wreaths annually at a memorial to Our Glorious Monstered on the 13th hour of the 13th day of the 13th month.

17. No one will see or hear from George Osbourne for the entire duration of the campaign. He will be too busy plotting to become the leader of the victorious wing of the Tory Party and praying that the wheels don’t come off his economic “plan” until he’s been Prime Minister for 18 months. This sort of behaviour has never been seen before in a British Chancellor.

18. There will be a moment in the campaign where Channel Four send Cathy Newman to fact check a claim that the Romanian shoe industry is being kept afloat by the wearing out of British EU referendum campaigners’ shoe leather.

19. The media will constantly refer to 1066, 1966, 1945 and 1688. No one with any sense will reference 409 despite it being the most useful comparator.

20. During the last week of the referendum campaign de facto acting Prime Minister Teresa May will announce the third runway at Heathrow, an extension of HS2 connecting the Lake District with Blenheim Palace, the mandatory fitting of surveillance cameras inside all social housing, the building of seventeen city centre nuclear reactors as part the Northern Power House programme, a free immigrant with every UKIP membership renewal, the handing over of Port Stanley to the Greater Argentine Co-Prosperity Sphere, the repeal of the minimum wage, the Sex Discrimination Act, the Racial Discrimination Act, the Reform Act of 1832 and the Married Women’s Property Act 1882. Rumours that Jimmy Savile is to be deified will be hotly denied.

21. After crashing the last remaining operational Sptifire in to the White Cliffs of Dover and being rescued by a Spanish trawler half owned via a Cayman Islands Holding Company for the Russian mafia, Jeremy Clarkson will marry Katie Hopkins in a small, private ceremony in Liverpool Cathedral.

22. The most widely signed petition of the referendum campaign will be a Green Party initiative to have Natalie Bennet excluded from the debates.

23. UKIP will No Platform the BNP. The BNP will No Platform George Galloway. George Galloway will No Platform his own hat. Other notable campaign low lights will include the Sun’s Tits Out for Europe campaign, Jeremy Corbyn being asked if he is for Britain or against it and answering, a crowd baying “Jump! Jump! Jump!”at Farage! Nigel Farage! after his German wife locks him out on the balcony of his four story town house in Royal Tunbridge Wells and Nick Clegg.

24. The No / Leave / Go / Out / Not In For Britain / Nigel Nigel Nigel Out! Out! Out! Campaigns will conduct an increasingly bitter social media war against each other. Policy will be ridiculed and personalities vilified on Twitter and Facebook. A cesspit of crude, foulmouthed, misogynistic, racist, homophobic abuse will be unleashed by the Leave campaign against itself (Tumblr will still largely consist of second rate Harry Potter slash fic and George Osbourne will buy Instagram and flood it with pictures of his Michelin starred lunch and a pig helixing.) CyberNats will blame JK Rowling for this.

25. After hundreds of international firms have patiently explained to their employees that if the UK leaves the EU they will all be sacked and Rupert Murdoch has patiently explained that if the UK votes to leave he will put tits back in the Times the vote will be a dead heat. Nicola Sturgeon will have the deciding vote.

In the coming weeks we will explore life After Brexit, Britain’s Currency Choices Post Brexit and What Staying In Means for Your Family.

i In Gaelic
ii W. Poza. W Poza. Trzęsą to całe o
iii Not anal.
iv Alex Salmond will be sworn in as Pub Landlord of the newly renamed People’s Dispensary for Irn Bru.
v It will turn out not to be possible to leave the India Call Centre Union no matter how many referenda we hold.

Rumours on the internet about the New Who abound but I can exclusively reveal that they are all as wrong as a bow-tie and fez.

Rather than replacing Matt Smith in Doctor Who a new spin-off series is planned for the Doctor.  The replacement for  Matt Smith will have his, or her, or their own spin-off series where an eccentric, wise and fundamentally good time traveller uses science, their skills and experience and the help of some assistants or companions to save various worlds from new and imaginative threats on a weekly basis. The name for this series is not decided yet. Options include Travels in Space with Science, A Plot, A Problem and a Professor, and Holes in the Space Time Continuity.

The part of the Doctor will be played by a blacked-up Helen Mirren. This is a fantastic step forward for both feminism and a multi-cultural Britain reflecting a nation at ease with itself. In a welcome return to the franchise Freema Agyeman will reprise her role as Martha Jones, the talented, brave, intellegent medical doctor and scientific advisor to UNIT. The lesbian sexual tension between Mirren and Agyeman’s characters will provide something to keep the dads (and a few mums!!!!) watching. Nigel Farage will play himself as a new companion to the time travelling adventurer. Farage’s character is believed to be called Nigel. Dowing Street was rocked by the news and a stunned David Cameron was said to have realised his political agenda would be in tatters if the Doctor and Dr Jones had ever will have been going to have will be snogged.

Villians planned for the new spin-off include Dinosaurs from Mars, Robots from Mars, Aliens from Mars, Spiders from Mars, a self aware Snickers bar, Austerity, a general feeling that things are not as good as they used to be, the EU and the institution of marriage.

The main series, Doctor Who will continue with Stephen Moffat and the existing star telling the long running tale of a glowing magic wand opening up Daleks, Cybermen and Sontarons like a tin opener. The hand holding the much loved Sonic Screwdriver will be played by a blurry Joey Tribbiani.

There are no plans to take forward a second spin-off series where Alan Rickman plays the Name of the Doctor.

( Spoilers )