The propensity of our alleged Prime Minister Alexander Biros de Pfeffel Johnson and his fellow stooges in the cabinet to keep on citing wartime metaphors in order to rouse the electorate to new heights of boredom knows no bounds. To illustrate this, someone has clearly dug out Winshton’s World War 2 highlights and handed them to Michael “Oiky” Gove with orders to deliver a similar oratorical flourish.
Back in the darkest days of that war, Churchill memorably told “We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender”. Nevah! That was the stuff of legend. So what’s “Oiky’s” version like?
“Planning for no deal is now this government’s No 1 priority - and that is why we have, since Wednesday, been accelerating preparations”. Do go on. “All the necessary funding is now being put in place … the government machine is being retooled for the task … he cabinet secretary has created a new, unified, Whitehall structure to co-ordinate action across departments and accelerate decision-making”. There is more.
Maybe too much more: “we will shortly launch one of the biggest peacetime public information campaigns this country has seen, so that citizens, communities and businesses can prepare for what will happen if there is no deal”. And then Gove rather lets himself go, as he builds to his not really memorable peroration.
“The entire machinery of government will work to help ensure our businesses will be ready, our factories will be ready, our hospitals will be ready - and the British people will be ready. We will be ready because we are not approaching this task with an attitude of business as usual. We are taking tough decisions and challenging conventional wisdom, so that we can deliver on the will of the British people”. Churchill it is not.
It’s more “We do not choose to do these things because they are easy”, which is JFK. And “Conventional wisdom” is J K Galbraith, which suggests someone ideologically suspect has wormed their way into the Cabinet Office. Gove’s attempt to do a Winshton is a damp squib. But he does want us all to know “Above all, we have the courage of our convictions and are determined to deliver for our country. Because that is what this new prime minister and new government are all about”. Talking about delivering. Yeah, right.
Talking about delivering has also spread to the Treasury, from where Sajid Javid has reported “In 95 days we’ll be out of the EU. If we can’t leave with a good deal, we’ll have to leave without one. That’s why I have tasked [H M Treasury] to immediately step up no deal preparations”. Lots of announcements. So it looks like something is being done.
And talk of a “war cabinet”. Because we’re at war, dontcha know? To which David Allen Green has concluded “The current cabinet is far more an Evelyn Waugh cabinet than ever a 'war cabinet’”. They’re talking a lot. Because they haven’t got a Scooby Doo.
But it sounds convincing. And that’s what our free and fearless press wants to hear.
Enjoy your visit to Zelo Street? You can help this truly independent blog carry on talking truth to power, while retaining its sense of humour, by adding to its Just Giving page at
18 comments:
In J.K.Galbraith's long ago TV series The Age of Uncertainty he told a tale of a butler serving dinner to his employer. As he did so, the employer ordered him to do something nasty. The butler nodded, turned away and extruded a long slow fart as he retired.
This is a suitable response for anything ordered by the current tenants of Downing Street.
They fail so spectacularly in channelling Churchill who, whatever your view of him was undeniably a great orator, and yet...their fans lap it up. Only yesterday I saw someone post on a YT video of Boris Johnson's rambling, incoherent waffle from the despatch box with 'we're witnessing Churchill 2.0'
"Because they haven’t got a Scooby Doo."
Not only that but they've put Shaggy in charge.
@Mark 12:46
There are hundreds of similar comments on that YouTube video.
"You can fool some of the people all of the time" and that's what Piffle Johnson, Reek-Bogg, Nigel Fart and the rest of them rely on.
Perhaps they will take Churchill's example and set up a coalition government to get ALL the people onside? And get businessmen, like Beaverbrook for example, who could help organise and liase across departments?
I won't be holding the phone either for Clownio to do the right thing or for the opposition to do likewise. Too much self interest at stake?
One piece of Churchill rhetoric I can see none of the Cabinet's spivs repeating is his "United States of Europe" speech given at Zurich University on 19th September 1946.
yeh what Churchill didn't say was "we'll fight them on the beaches..with the Yanks, Russians, Commonwealth etc"...ie: a union not unlike the EU.
Those invoking WW2 "spirit", none of whom were there haven't got a clue.
That the same Churchill who two days after the Germans surrendered ordered the Brit military to plan a nuclear attack on Russian allies who had just lost twenty million fighting the Nazis? Who let three million Indians starve to death? Who ordered needless bombing mass murders of innocent civilians in Dresden, Hamburg and other cities?
Christ, it's only a matter of time before we get Dunkirk, Spitfires and Vera Lynn all over again.
I'll give you this, Tim.
You certainly know how to press the right buttons.
Not that it's that difficult with some internet personalities......
You wanna know about pressing the right buttons Anonymous?
Remember that time I would up Steve Owen? That showed him
@11:14.
Er, no. Perhaps you could "enlighten"?
The fact that you don't know about Steve Owen shows what a good job I did.
I do miss my brother Grant though.
"Alexander Biros de Pfeffel Johnson"
I would have thought he was a fountain-pen man, myself. Possibly an Osmiroid...or something that sounds not too dissimilar...
@16:03.
You should get out more.
Today I got as far as the Bow Bells, a nice family day out with Louise, Keanu and the missus.
Ofcourse, I could spend the time lapping up Tory propaganda, like you. But who needs that when you have Gilligan?
@23:22.
That's not "getting out".
That's staring up your own arse hole.
Staring up my own arse hole? I've got Sharon to do that for me sunshine.
We've found someone, Anonymous, who's never heard of Phil Mitchell. I can't even...
Post a Comment