Voters caught between rock, hard place, various pointy objects, and large turd

And that’s exactly where Theresa May wants them.

“Mock my red, white and blue Brexit will you? Fine, but don’t be upset when I CRUSH you”, the Prime Minister probably didn’t say.

But possibly did.

So here we are then. Who do you pick from this cornucopia of idols, this raft of gods made human? Which of the deities on offer shall we humble Brits choose to part the waves of the Channel and give that there Europe what for? In case you’re in any doubt about the runners and riders, here is a quick summary:

1. Theresa ‘fuck you all’ May – Champion of Tory ‘Battle Royale’ 2016. Victorious through a combination of backstabbing and Andrea Leadsom. Would stab own mother in back for small piece of cheese.
2. Jeremy ‘fuck all chance’ Corbyn – Principled man with number of well considered policies. Gives balanced answers. As a result, will get annihilated.
3. Tim ‘who the fuck’ Farron – Your guess as good as mine
4. Paul ‘fuck off’ Nuttall – Fuck off. Only included him to say fuck off. Fuck off.

However will we pick from such a bountiful harvest? Christ, it makes Sophie’s Choice look easy.

Right, that’s the sweary bit over. Let’s try and extract something useful out of this farce.

On the plus side, this is funny

The reaction to the snap election – presumably called because we don’t have anything more pressing that we ought to concentrate on – has been interesting. If May has achieved nothing else, she has at least succeeded in at last uniting the country, albeit only in a long, weary, apathetic collective groan.

 

One of the biggest dangers of this election could be apathy. It feels like people are tired of politics, of the bickering, the infighting, the lies, the bullshit. I certainly am. A lot of people won’t want to vote for May and her band of Brexiteers’ vision of a future Britain. At the same time, people aren’t exactly going to be rushing to the polls to vote Labour or Lib Dem. We’re sorely lacking in politicians to get behind, politicians to trust and follow. The sentiment of ‘what’s the point, nothing changes, they’re all the same’ feels increasingly commonplace, and is understandable.

That said, I think it’s misplaced. Things do change. Political parties aren’t the same. Votes matter, and who you vote for matters too.

Think back to 2010, when the Tories came to power. Ever heard of a food bank in 2010? Nobody had, because they barely existed. The Trussell Trust gave out 40,000 emergency food supplies that year. By last year, they were giving out in excess of 1,100,000 – an almost 30-fold increase in just 7 years.

Homelessness? Doubled since 2010. Homelessness funding? Halved since 2010.

Can’t get a doctor’s appointment? This government has strangled spending increases in the NHS at an unprecedented rate.

Everywhere you look, public services have been cut for the most vulnerable. People we should value in society – teachers, doctors – are constantly asked to perform the impossible and consistently improve provision on less and less money. Who gets the blame when they can’t pull that rabbit from the non-existent hat? Certainly ain’t the government.

Have the Tories managed to cut the deficit as they promised? Have they fuck. It’s accelerated at a prodigious rate.

People have never felt poorer. More families are in poverty than ever. We’re a meaner, pettier, more hateful society than I can ever recall. We are big on rights and small on responsibilities. We rely on charity to do what the state ought to.

We kiss the arses of the worst men in the world because they might buy some guns off us. Our PM holds hands with the World’s Greatest Dickhead in the hope they’ll trade with us. British values? Please.

But don’t worry, the economy is in good shape. Record numbers of people can’t feed their kids, but hey ho, that’s just the market for you.

All the while, we’ve been merrily letting the richest off their taxes, and letting the most powerful corporations pay barely any tax at all. Given that tax is where the money for those doctors, teachers and other non-essentials comes from, this seems like an oversight at best.

And let’s not even get started on Brexit. What started as an attempt to quell an entirely Tory argument has led the country into a hilarious shitstorm the likes of which may of us have never known. No Tories, no Brexit. Simples.

So it’s wrong to think that votes don’t matter. It’s wrong to think that nothing changes whoever you vote for. Things change, massively – they just don’t change overnight. Now I’m not suggesting that a vote the other way would lead to a glorious Utopia whre we all hold hands and sing songs – but there is a lot in the above that simply would not have happened with a Lib/Lab government. Sure, there would have been other problems, undoubtedly – but I can’t see how we would be in quite such a mess with any other party.

The Labour/Lib Dem options are hardly appealing. But they’re better than what we’ve got at the moment, they could hardly be more damaging. So much as I would like to sit this election out, eating tiramisu with a long spoon, I’m going to vote for one of them. I don’t even mind which – just whoever is stronger in my own constituency. And it will be a wholly joyless experience.

Yay, democracy!

Labour confusing words again

The Labour Party – Britain’s premier right of centre left wing political party – has started mixing up its words and phrases again.

As the Labour leadership election contest heats up, many prominent bigwigs have become somewhat lost in the moment and completely lost track of their vocabulary.

The most obvious and oft-repeated mistake of recent days has been the use of the word ‘credible’, where in fact the phrase ‘an utter bastard’ ought to have been deployed.

Key examples include:

 

As well as a fairly widespread attempt to label frontrunner Jeremy Corbyn as “not credible”. In a lightly more complex misunderstanding, many big beasts within the party have apparently, somehow, been using the word ‘electable’ in place of the common phrase, “exactly like the Tories, except wearing a red tie”. Journalists recently recorded a conversation between Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson which shows how commonplace this mis-speech has become:

Blair: This Corbyn fellow – do we think he’d make a good leader?

Mandelson: Well, let’s see. He’s had about 60% of the vote in his constituency for the last 32 years so he must be doing something right.

Blair: That’s good – is he credible though?

Mandelson: No. He’s not a fan of having a large and costly arsenal of those vital nuclear weapons we so desperately need, he’s against selling off literally everything we have, and for some reason he doesn’t think migrants are the cause of all of our problems.

Blair: This sounds bad. I dread to ask, but which countries does he want to bomb?

Mandelson: None of them Tony. None at all. Not even the really oily ones.

Blair: Sweet lord. Please tell me he’s at least electable Peter?

Mandelson: That’s just the thing Tony – I’ve never even seen him in a tie.

Blair: Well this could be a total disaster, we’ll never attract the UKIP vote with that kind of attitude. Tell you what, let’s use our overwhelming publicly popularity to speak out and bury this rabble rouser.

Mandelson: Great idea. And if for some unthinkable reason that doesn’t work, let’s suggest we cancel the election altogether until Corbyn dies and we get a leader who is credible. That would send a great message and not make us look even remotely stupid.

Blair: You’ve still got it Peter. Now, which one of these orphans should we kick next?

Labour does have form in this area – most notably during the reign of Blair when they started using the term ‘has millions of massive nuclear weapons pointed at us RIGHT NOW’ in place of ‘is totally unarmed’ – so this latest episode is not altogether surprising.

Perhaps Corbyn’s radical ideas are just too scary for many to contemplate – a more equal society, a move away from the pursuit of naked profit at all costs, pointing out that perhaps all the money doesn’t need to be shared between about 4 people, spending more cash on schools than on massive tanks – these are all things that surely no ordinary voter could ever align to.

We don’t need a genuine alternative to right wing politics in the UK. What this country surely needs is a Labour party headed by an identikit politician that works hard for the rich and the middle classes, shows a bit of flirtatious ankle to our hard-working billionaires, and installs a death ray that sweeps over Calais roughly every fifteen minutes.

If they don’t fight for these necessities, who will?

Glastonbury ‘just a muddy version of your office’

Revellers arriving at Glastonbury for days of inebriated mayhem have been shocked to discover that all of their colleagues are there too.

An air of tension hangs over Worthy Farm as festival goers try to reconcile the urge to consume as many narcotics as will fit in them with the need to not expose any genitalia to their line manager, who is camped seven yards away.

Entire reporting lines have sprung up accidentally all over the site, with attendance particularly high among those who claim to work in new media, management consultancy or any form of tech startup. Farringdon is reportedly empty at present.

The situation is especially awkward for the 78% of people who are have told their peers that they are working from home or attending a conference, with many trying to cover their backs by wandering the site and repeating the phrase “this immersive residential course is really going to help me pitch my brand to millenials” to every passer by they encounter.

“This immersive residential course is really going to help me pitch my brand to millenials”

Festival organisers have expressed fears that the inherently twattish culture of the modern British workplace is having a negative effect on the festival.

“We are worried, yes”, admitted organiser Stephanie Sinclair. “Last night there were only 9 people watching Florence + The Machine on the main stage, while we had almost a quarter of a million attempting to watch one woman talk about why Powerpoint is dead and all your deliverables should be presented in the form of contemporary dance. It might be innovative but it’s not exactly Glasto is it?

“What even is a deliverable anyway? I swear these people just make up words.”

Sinclair did concede that there was some common ground between the spirit of the festival and the corporate hordes who attend it.

“There are literally boatloads of drugs, which is obviously a big part of this whole thing. We’re also pretty sure that Kanye West will be a sellout – when he plays music they all start turning to their friends and screaming “THIS IS MY JAM”, thousands of them at a time. I find this confusing, as they’re rarely actually holding jam at the time.”

It is unclear whether behaviours observed at the festival will impact on workers’ day jobs, although there would surely be mass support for any quarterly review that reads: ‘Overall, Gary’s work has been exemplary, but I did see him chewing a tent pole at Glastonbury. I, however, thought I was a dragon and was wearing only ski goggles at the time, so I’m willing to overlook it on this occasion.’

Meanwhile, Sinclair and her team will have to work out how to attract a more diverse crowd to next year’s event.

“We charge hundreds of pounds for ticket, we open the phone lines at 10am – yet we keep ending up with crowds of people who loads of cash and jobs that don’t sound real.”

“I just don’t get it.”

UKIP song heralds hilarious new era of political broadcasts

Nigel Farage and his band of people who are only saying what everyone else is thinking would like everyone to know that they have an MP and a song and they’re going all the bloody way to Downing Street.

Well it works for Vladimir

The party, with an average gender of man, and average skin colour of white and an average emotional state somewhere between drunk and angry, have grabbed headlines in the past week by overcoming all odds and gaining an MP in a constituency where their candidate was already the MP, but used to be in another party. If they were on a football team, they would be the equivalent of Santiago Vergini.

Just wanted an excuse to get that in, sorry.

To celebrate snaring approximately 0.2% of the seats in parliament, supporters of the new force in British politics immediately released a song with such classic pop themes as the work pension scheme, tax on the minimum wage and an old white bloke who supports a far right party singing in a Jamaican accent. I’m not going to link to it because it’s one of the more cringeworthy things I’ve ever forced myself to sit through, but suffice to say I thought it was a piss take for quite a long time.

UKIP are now of the opinion that it’ll get to number one, which should give you a fairly good idea of the kind of minds attracted to the organisation.

What they have done, I hope, is ushered in a new dawn of political broadcasts through the glorious medium of song. Whilst undeniably a flying pile of wank, it is still infinitely more watchable than any party political broadcast that has ever been created. For the uninitiated, they go like this:

Scene 1: Fade in – Person who is nothing like you: “I am just like you.”

Scene 2: Person visits old person or minority, talks about something abstract which they then shoehorn back to their party

Scene 3: Party leader says something, slow mo of leader with ‘normals’ to show that they’re down with real people

Scene 4: Smiles, music, fade out. VOTE FOR US.

I feel like these inane 4 minute wastes of airwaves could be jazzed up a bit if everybody went down the musical route. As a starter for 10, for any political PR types reading, I’ve come up with a verse or two for each of the big 3. I think these would go down a storm and also convey key party ideologies, so feel free to use them.

Conservatives – to the tune of You’re Beautiful by James Blunt – sung by David Cameron

My life is brilliant, my funds secure,

I saw a poor man,of that I’m sure.

He smiled at me in my Jaguar,

he was sitting in a van,

but I won’t lose no sleep on it, ’cause I’ve got a plan.

 

We’ll kill them all,

We’ll kill them all,

We’ll kill them all, it’s true.

I can’t stand folk, who are just flat broke,

And I don’t know what to do,

But I do know I don’t like you.

 

Labour – to the tune of Hello by Lionel Ritchie – sung by Ed Miliband

Hello? Is it me you’re looking for?

What do you mean you don’t know who I am? I’m Ed Miliba…hello? Hello? 

Ed? Balls. They’ve hung up.

 

Lib Dems – to the tune of Help! by the Beatles – sung by Nick Clegg

Just the chorus, sung over and over again, maybe with a couple of sobs thrown in for good measure. 

Every Scot to get luxury jet to stay in UK

The Better Together campaign has denied descending into panic while simultaneously promising the whole Scots population lavish gifts.

As the Scottish referendum draws near and exactly one poll shows the Yes campaign in a marginal lead, the Better Together campaign have promptly cacked themselves and promised every man, woman and child their choice of a boat, a jet or the pricier option of a lifetime’s supply of Irn-Bru.

Other plans include sending legions of politicians north of the border in order to charm wavering voters. This will likely involve senior Tories, such popular figures in Scotland, telling people what they should think. If this stroke of genius fails to produce the expected 50 point swing to the No campaign, David Cameron will personally stand atop Edinburgh castle and defecate on a Saltire. It is thought that the Scots will be thrilled by such a feral, masculine display of authority and immediately attack Alex Salmond en masse.

Export strength

Only if this should also fail will Better Together officially enter panic mode, presumably triggering some kind of small scale nuclear war.

Quite how much to read into one opinion poll – especially one commissioned by a Murdoch paper and then leaked by the man himself, is questionable, but given that the No campaign has been run under the slogan of ‘It’s in the bag!’ since day one it is not really surprising that the Yes campaign have started to gain ground.

Alistair Darling and his eyebrows will point toward the less-than-sporting approach adopted by the Yes campaign: a refusal to answer any major question, a commitment to the truth that would make Fox News proud, and a fundamental misunderstanding of what independence means that is genuinely alarming – but it’s tough to have much sympathy when his campaign has had all the substance of a quite, damp fart.

Television out of ideas

All viable ideas for television programmes have been used, broadcasters fear.

The hour-long, recurring, behind-the-scenes documentary about how teams are selected for University Challenge, a show whose high points include discussing the ‘bite point’ of a buzzer, has confirmed  that television has finally reached the end of the creative line.

The writing has been on the wall for some time for the medium. Punters have begun to notice that shows have lacked a certain level of originality, falling into one of three categories:

1. celebrities performing active task in glittery or skimpy outfits
2. amateurs perform whimsical craft, to be judged mercilessly by tossers or the elderly
3. one hour show about thirty minute show

While the first is perhaps not a new phenomenon, the formats are becoming increasingly obscure. Production meetings now consist of bored executives etching words onto dog biscuits and letting the office terrier go mental – the last remaining biscuit-idea is then made into a primetime show. This method has been responsible for classics like Tumble and Splash – and rumoured to be in the pipeline are Animal Husbandry and Chess, although producers are still struggling with the idea that is simply titled ‘Goats’.

“No idea is a bad idea”

The second group of shows, a more recent but still well-worn format, effectively involves taking a middle-class pastime, gathering ‘talented amateurs’ and then making them fight each other to produce ludicrous gifts for maniacal overlords. Great British Bake Off is of course the best-known example. The shows rely on taking something that makes inherently dull viewing, like baking, sewing or one-pot slow cookery, and tarting them up with outlandish challenges. It is not enough to simply make a nicely-baked bun – contestants must stack and glue the buns into an exact, life-sized replica of Paul Hollywood’s naked form or risk a physical beating from a riled-up octagenarian. Future series include Loft of the Year and the Great British Ironing Some Shirts Contest.

Finally, the new class of dross – the show about a show. As well as the aformentioned crime that is ‘Watching socially awkward children try and apply for a quiz show, then talk about quizzes, then practice quizzes’, the Bake Off makes another appearance with ‘An Extra Slice’, which can only be awful. Their origins can probably be traced back to Big Brother’s Little Brother, which speaks volumes. Their main features are that they are longer than the actual shows they are about, and almost compellingly boring.

The current lineup is just the tip of the iceberg; as schedules become more and more devoid of things to go in them and people start noticing they’re watching a re-run of a re-run, expect to see new delights such as ‘Getting Ready for Work’: An in-depth look at people getting ready for work, before leaving for menial office jobs. This will accompany the major new series ‘Work’, documenting people doing their jobs and occasionally weeping into their tea.

By 2016 it is predicted that television will just comprise a live feed of whoever is watching it, sitting on their sofa, watching themselves, with information on how to tweet along displayed at the bottom of the screen.

Which is still better than Eastenders.

Tossers replaced by arseholes in political earthquake

UKIP leader Nigel Farage has declared a glorious new era in British politics after his shower of arseholes narrowly defeated several bunches of tossers in the European elections.

The European and council elections, which are so important that a) they’re buy one get one free and b) the only people who bothered to vote were the people who have a lot of spare time on their hands on a Thursday and/or are easily led by questionable claims on immigration, were an apparently seismic shift in the British political landscape. Farage promised a political earthquake, which itself was an odd thing to promise given that earthquakes are often, and indeed always, associated with destruction, ruin and death rather than positive change. He duly delivered a tremor which is surely on a par with the legendary Folkestone earthquake of 2007, which caused mild damage to chimney pots and shook a lady’s wardrobe handles.

Seismic.

The charismatic, compared to Cameron, Miliband or a tree, UKIP leader has spent the past two days braying like an aroused donkey, and has now swanned off to Brussels to stare distrustingly at the Polish delegation and complain loudly about how EU is law strangling Britain whilst staying within arm’s reach of the buffet at all times. He is then planning an assault on Westminster – it is unclear whether this will be a political, physical or sexual assault, but Westminster has been advised to start carrying pepper spray and avoid dark alleys.

In other exciting news, voter turnout has been confirmed at a shade over 34%, which is much like one person voting for a threesome while the other two are in the toilet, then them having to go through with it when they get back, and that being absolutely fine.

The other major political parties, and the Lib Dems, have responded in typically sterling fashion to this latest setback by promising to get more in touch with the electorate – even though the electorate have shown that they probably shouldn’t even be touched with a ten foot barge pole. David Cameron has done his best puppy dog eyes before claiming that UKIP was pretty much his idea, and Ed Miliband has tried hard to give the impression that he is human, while Nick Clegg has seemingly taken to permanent weeping and visiting all nine of his voters personally, which has been on the cards for some time now.

So what can we expect in this brave new world? Perhaps the biggest difference to daily life will be that the man who used to use phrases like ‘Johnny Foreigner’ and ‘dirty, untrustworthy, thieving bastard types’ in the pub is now your elected representative, with all the wonderful benefits that will bring. Expect heightened levels of general incompetence coupled with occasional bouts of homophobia.

In Europe, the EU will move from talking about shared values and doing very little, to talking about self interests and doing very little and not letting the Romanian delegate out of sight.

As for the general election next year, who knows. If we believe UKIP, we’ll probably have been overrun by a tidal wave of immigrants and choked to death by bureaucracy this time next year, so it probably won’t matter anyway.

London hyperbole levels return to normal

Hyperbole, exaggeration and ridiculously self-important statements have finally receded in London following last week’s tube strikes.

Following 48 hours of having to endure a slightly shitter tube network than normal, incidences of phrases like ‘Blitz spirit’, ‘Dunkirk mentality’ and ‘travel hell’ have dropped down to normal London levels, roughly five times the national average. An actual judge used the words ‘Dunkirk spirit’ to describe a jury managing to make it to court and nobody batted an eyelid, as though reaching a central London location using a still acceptable level of public transport were in any way akin to floating into a warzone across miles of open sea in a bathtub. Similarly, literally all of the people who described an exchange of pleasantries on a bus as ‘Blitz spirit’ were subsequently at a loss to explain how this event was in any way comparable to having high explosive dropped on your house for several years.

The level of blatant egocentrism sweeping the Big Smoke threatened to exceed tolerable levels and leave Londoners weeping uncontrollably into their soy lattes, bleating about enduring terrible hardship. Examples of these travails include waiting 10 minutes for a tube, unplanned use of own legs and talking to other Londoners in a semi-civil manner.

However did we survive?

Indeed, the infectious wave of camaraderie threatened to engulf the entire capital – reports suggest an outbreak of singing on one bus and strangers helping a fainting woman on another. Many Londoners found themselves unable to intentionally elbow strangers or block people from getting off trains despite a strong urge to do so. They found themselves speaking in tongues, uttering alien phrases like ‘no, you first’. Many have subsequently described the experience as ‘hellish’.

Thankfully, the episode has passed and a healthy level of fear and hatred of one’s fellow human has been re-instilled across the capital.

The rest of the UK, predictably, have failed to see what the problem is with waiting 10 minutes for a bus or train and have quietly pointed out that while it must be quite tough to have to walk to work, it’s probably almost as tough to have your house flooded, have your transport network washed away and your entire county re-classified as a large lake. They have also suggested that Londoners who still think they’ve got any kind of issues at all might like to swap lives for a week, or kindly shut up.

New Year celebrations ‘somewhat premature’

As 2014 rumbles into its third consecutive day of being unfathomably awful, the wild celebrations and raised hopes of the nation are starting to look slightly misplaced.

Expectant Britons awoke bleary-eyed and possibly next to a stranger or farm animal sometime around tea-time on the 1st of January, certain that the financial worries, scandal and general dampness of 2013 were a thing of the past. Many were devastated to find that 2014 was possibly more shit than its predecessor; elation turned to embarrassment as roughly 99% of the population remembered sincerely believing that 2014 was going to be great, and telling this loudly and repeatedly to friends, loved ones and people they met on bridges just hours beforehand.

Probably caused by immigrants.

If the first three days of the new year are a good barometer of the rest of the year, and they almost definitely are, the UK is in for a metaphorical and in all likelihood literal shitstorm over the coming 362 days.

The first concern is the weather, which has cranked up a notch since midnight two days ago from ‘Biblical’ to ‘how does one construct an Ark?’ on the Beaufort scale. Dorset has gone from ‘quite waterlogged’ to ‘pretty much an extension of the sea’ on the Guardian’s how-flooded-is-my-county infographic, while in other parts of the UK the flood warnings have gone off the traditional Yellow-Amber-Red scale and into the little used ‘black’ warning, which is simply the word ‘REPENT’ written in blood on a wall.

In society, everyone is now even more skint than last year, ironically due to overspending on New Year celebrations. Hearteningly, BNP aubergine-in-chief Nick Griffin has been declared bankrupt in possibly the only positive news story of the year so far. He has also added some ironic cheer by announcing that he is writing a booklet on how to deal with debt – likely to be as useful as Accrington Stanley’s guide to winning the Champion’s League.

Back on the downside, every celebrity from the seventies is still a paedophile, your job is just as tedious as it was last year and if the Daily Mail is to be believed there are Romanians and Bulgarians stealing that job, as well as your car, home and spouse, as you read this.

In sport, the England cricket team continue to push the very limits of sporting ineptitude and poor decision-making, culminating in electing to send Michael Carberry out to bat with a potato masher, putting a blancmange in at number eight, and then bowling underarm to Brad Haddin.

Time will tell whether 2014 will carry out its threat to be a complete bastard of a year. If it is, there are already plans afoot to alter the traditional New Year’s celebrations across the country from a joyful, welcoming occasion to a sinister, threatening one. Fireworks and champagne will be replaced by hard looking bastards with clubs, muttering threats. Auld Lang Syne and ill-advised kisses will make way for battle speeches, manly fist bumps and three minutes to ‘get tooled up’. 2015 will of course be welcomed in a civil enough fashion, but it will know that the second it tries to dick us about we’re going to smash it’s fucking teeth in.

UK schoolchildren ‘amazing at FIFA’

British children are rubbish at school, but have gaming skills that are the envy of the world, according to a new report.

Whilst British pupils struggle with literacy and numeracy, especially compared to traditional global education powerhouses like Vietnam, those nations’ progeny typically struggle with even basic use of the right thumbstick. Conversely, to watch a British youth unlock an opposition defence with a whirling dance of face buttons, triggers and stick work is to watch a ballet played out on a plasma screen.

Even if that joy evaporates shortly afterwards when the same child can’t tell you what the score is.

The results are staggering given the UK’s world-class treatment of education and the young in recent years. By simultaneously loathing, fearing, castigating, belittling, and, in the case of some tabloids, letching on anybody under 16, it was hoped to create a competitive class of pupils with the self-confidence to excel and the belief that older generations cared about them. The same is true of teachers, who are generally shat on by government and then paid very little and then shat on some more. The theory that this would create a happy, go-getting workforce that would be the dream job for every graduate has, incredibly, been proved false.

Hasn’t got a clue what she’s doing.

It is thought that education secretary Michael Gove’s response will be to push through his already popular education reforms even faster. Gove is apparently a big fan of the ‘fuck teachers’ mentality, and after these findings it is likely he will adjust that mantra to ‘fuck teachers faster’, which ought to be just wonderful for the entire education system.

His curriculum reforms are largely based around re-introducing sepia tone and the enforced, raucous singing  of ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ every school day, plus some other stuff he wrote one afternoon. They have been labelled as ‘brilliant’ by all his mates and ‘hilariously shit’ by almost everyone associated with British education, so it remains to be seen whether they can rescue the situation.

Fortunately, children themselves remain completely unconsulted on any of this, because obviously their thoughts and opinions are completely unworthy of recognition. All they’ve been told is that they’ve let us all down and destroyed the whole country forever, so it’s highly likely that they’ll now approach school with renewed vigour and enthusiasm and more or less learn like banshees all the time.

Basically everything will probably be fine and we’ll probably be top of the league next time round.

And if that doesn’t work we’ll just smash them at Call of Duty.