danieldwilliam | Entries tagged with what passes for satire

The country has been plunged in to chaos and the lights have gone out all over Europe.

Here at the Tartan Shortbread Institute of Scotology we've gotten hold of a couple of British candles and we've analysed the positions, pedigree and experience of the five candidates for Tory leader.

And we've decided to bring you 25 True Facts About Boris Johnson instead

1) Coward
2) Opportunist
3) Opportunistic Coward
4) Cowardly Opportunist
5) Back-stabber
6) Back-stabing Cowards
7) Cowardly Back-stabber
8) Back-stabbing Opportunist
9) Oppotunistic Back-stabber
10) Cowardly, Opportunistic Back-stabber
11) Opportunist, Cowardly Back-stabber
12) Back-stabbing Opportunistic Coward
13 Back-stabbing Cowardly Opportunist
14) Liar
15 Fool
16) Lying Fool
17) Foolish Liar
18) Self-Centred
19) Selfish Liar
20) Selfish Fool
21) Selfish Lying Fool
22) Lying Selfish Fool
23) Foolish Selfish Liar
24) Selfish Foolish Liar
25) Foolish Lying Narcissist
26) Lying Foolish Narcissist
27) Back-stabbing Cowardly Opportunistic Lying Foolish Narcissist.

Admittedly, that is 27 True Facts rather than 25 True Facts but everyone one knows that 27 is the gross figure, not the net figure.

Current Mood: angry
Current Location: Still in the EU b'gad.
Current Music: Send in the Clowns, by Stephen Sondheim

I was corresponding with a USian colleague about the impact of Brexit on our business and offered him some Brexit Buzzwords that he could drop in to conversations in the US so as to appear knowledgable and on the ball.

I offer 15 of them below. Feel free to add your own

Article 50 (has not been invoked)

Corbynista (#JezzWeCan - equivalent to #FeelTheBern)

£350 million

Cornwall (voted for Brexit, would like the UK goverment to guarrantee its EU funding)

Sewell Convention (the memorandum that lays out the process for changing the devolution settlement for Scotland)

Dundalk - Newry crossing - (the bit of the Northern Ireland / Republic of Ireland border with the most traffic - if I recall correctly this is where a senior IRA commander had a farm that literally straddled the border.)

Wiff Waff is Coming Home.

"Actually I've got €50 onTeresa May becoming PM"

The pound, oh my god, the pound.

Kubler Ross Grief Cycle

"Nicola Sturgeon is perhaps the most astute politician in the UK."

#IndyRef2

"Actually I've got €50 on Tom Watson becoming Labour Leader."

Guardian reading metropolitian liberal elite (you say that as if it's a bad thing)

Unwritten constitution.

Current Mood: jolly
Current Location: In the EU
Current Music: Ode To Joy

The Tartan Shortbread Institute of Scotology has been busy peering in to the future of ~~the UK~~ England to determine if there actually is any future for any of us now. There’s good news and there’s bad news. The good news is that the Institute has secured EU funding from the Social Cohesion Fund. The bad news – well we’ve found ourselves locked up on a small island with a bunch of racists lead by the Chuckle Brothers. To pass the time until our taxi arrives to take us back to Europe here are 25 True Facts about Life After Brexit

A radical change in education policy will be the first act of the new UK government. History, Economics and Science will be removed from the curriculum and replaced with Casual Racism and C’mon Engerland Studies.

The Queen will abdicate and then be deported. Britain will become a republic. There doesn’t appear to be any other way to get round the fact that our Royal Family are unwelcome EU economic migrants who moved here from Germany and Greece to build a better life for themselves and their children.

After stemming a massive run on the banks by personally standing in the streets of Newcastle handing out five euro notes Mark Carney will be given a knighthood for his services to not fucking things up any more than they already are. He won’t be able to accept the knighthood, because he’s Canadian and not a UK citizen.

With the UK leaving the EU the European Union has lost the fifth largest economy in the world and will have to rely on the Germans to run everything and make everything. The Germans seem remarkably unconcerned by this onerous responsibility.

After losing the Labour leadership election to an empty sack of potatoes dressed in a kimono and lightly garnished with gladioli Jeremy Corbyn will become our lead exit negotiator with the EU Commission. Wearing only a heliotrope smoking jacket he will be tasked with negotiating the terms of the UK's exit from the EU. He will bring a touch of vigour and enterprise to the EU that has been sadly missing of late. By the end of the negotiations Pimlico will be a Workers Revolutionary Paradise and the rest of London will belong to Donald Trump.

Wiff Waff is coming home. It's being carried home by about a million ex-pat Brits from Spain. They have exactly the keen reflexes and go get 'em attitude we need to make ourselves the Wiff Waff capital of the Commonwealth.

The Commonwealth will vote to expel us. No reason, well, no reason other than the fact that we’ve destroyed our own economy so are of no value to them and have just revealed ourselves to still be massively racist dicks. Also, without the Queen we no longer have anyone interesting to send on visits when the governments of Commonwealth nations want to distract their own population from corruption scandals or their own economic woes. Now they don’t have to. Instead they can just point at England, the world’s sixth largest economy and laugh.

The new Prime Minister of the UK will be hand picked by the 1922 Committee from amongst the brightest and best Old Etonions not currently too busy running daddy’s hedge fund or in prison for illegal arms trading. If you are lucky it will Teresa May.

You are shit out of luck. The new Prime Minister of the UK will be Boris Johnson. Unlike Mario Cuomo who campaigned in poetry and governed in prose Johnson will campaign in Latin and govern in incoherent, self-serving gibberish but still, never mind, there’s always the Wiff Waff. And the casual racism. Oh and the UK will still be the world’s seventh largest economy.

The south of England can ignore global warming and the risk of droughts. Hose pipe bans will be a thing of the past. The roses of Kent will be watered by the bitter, bitter tears of EU citizens who are going to be sent back to where they come from. NB this does not apply to Boris Johnson who is an American of Turkish descent or Nigel Farage’s German wife.

Scotland will leave. We will take our Wiff Waff paddles with us.

People worried about the fragile peace in Northern Ireland will thank a catholic God that the IRA are reasonable people.

A moment of national contemplation and celebration will occur giving thanks that this whole sordid affair has passed off without a shot being fired. Well, except for the ones that murdered Jo Cox. A bit like immigrants you personally like, those bullets don’t count.

Port Talbot steel works will close but the Welsh will still be able to make a living doing whatever it is they do in the 21^stcentury’s eighth largest economy.

No one will point and laugh at us during the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. This is largely due to the fact that Brasil has problems of its own with a massive scary plague, inept and corrupt politicians, a tanking economy and uneasy relationship with a colonial past. Birds of a feather.

Pairing off against Jeremy Corbyn and Michael Gove in the Brexit negotiations will be newly appointed EU Commissioner Alex Salmond. Only kidding. We’re sending Billy Connolly – you boys look like you need cheering up and we have to respect that the EU is negotiating with the world’s ninth largest economy. Negotiations will drag on for years as Connolly attempts but fails to finish an anecdote about a Glaswegian shepherd wrestling a fish supper in his wellies.

London will demand a devolution settlement on a par with Scotland but with full fiscal autonomy. That’s full fiscal autonomy for the rest of England. The bits with no jobs or money. New Premier Sadiq Kahn will cancel fiscal transfers and solidarity payments to the North of England on the grounds that most of the money is made by EU citizens and they don’t see why it should be spent on schools and hospitals in a foreign country.

Round about the time that Scotland and Northern Ireland leave the UK the former Great Britain will realise that the Great in Great Britain refers to its size relative to Brittany when both of those areas were part of the Angevian Empire and just because you call something “great” doesn’t make it actually great unless by “great” you mean xenophobic, myopic and destitute.

In 2019, just ahead of the next English General Election, from out of the sack of potatoes occupying the Opposition dispatch box will emerge Gordon Brown, the King over the Water, who will lead the Labour to a stunning election victory just in time to be served with a repossession notice by the French. They would like Hastings back.

Douglas Carswell will defect to Plaid Cymru.

The main economic activity of the rump of the UK will be betting on how long the recession will last. This will sustain the UK as the twelfth largest economy in the world.

Bob Geldolf will organise a fund raising concert on a barge in the Thames for impoverished Mackums. No one will go.

The third runway at Heathrow will finally go ahead. At long last someone will find a use for all those sodding Wiff Waff paddles. They can be used to guide the private jets of Russian Mafioso to their personal tax free terminal building. The Pret a Manger in Terminal Five will overtake the UK to become the world’s seventeenth largest economy.

Freed of costly regulations like workers’ rights, paid holiday and health and safety legislation the working classes of the North will enjoy a cultural renaissance where they rediscover the whole point of class solidarity, internationalism and organised labour. Paul Mason will martyr himself with a searing blog about international capitalism or something. The General Strike of 2026 will bring the world’s 47^thlargest economy to its knees.

England will be knocked out of the 2022 World Cup at the semi-final stage by Germany on penalties. An embarrassed Angela Merkell will be heard to mutter “You really can’t help some people can you?”

Current Mood: Wiff Waffed
Current Location: Terminal Five - it's the world's fifth largest economy you know
Current Music: Wiff Waff's Coming Home, by Skinner and Badeil and the 1966 World Cup Squad

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.

Current Mood: delerious
Current Location: Norway
Current Music: Hokey Cokey