Saturday Evenings: Stay In, Sit Up and Switch On

I read one of your magazines this morning. Which one? I asked her. The one with Boris Johnson on the front. Ah, The New Statesman. What did you think? I think we should put politicians to the test before they are elected. Like a run-through or rehearsal? Yes, kind of.

My daughter and I were on our way to London’s West End. Like many families in the last few days we were trying to make sense of the outcome of the European referendum. I appreciated my daughter’s comment and her interest in an issue that will define her generation for years to come. I did explain to her, though, that society cannot work on trials and errors like science experiments. A society is made up of human beings and like it or not, we all have a stake in the way our country is governed. Better than having a dry-run whenever a politician comes up with a “brilliant” idea, we ought to ensure that the mechanisms through which that politician is elected work to their full capacity. Like hold said politician to account when they fail to produce the £350m-a-week they pledged for the NHS a few weeks before.

However, as we crossed Oxford Street en route to Tottenham Court Road, the popular Dominion Theatre on our right hand-side, I could not stop thinking about the theory put forward by my precocious fifteen-year-old. In my head I began to tweak her “experiment” a bit. Only that this time I was planning to use the arguments of the “other side”. Those who say they have no voice, that they cannot talk freely, that it is all “political correctness gone mad”. I wanted to see my adopted land through the eyes of those who hate what I represent. What if they took control of their country for a year? I sometimes feel like telling them, “Fine, go ahead, go as far as you possibly can. There will be no limits, no hurdles, and no objections. We will pave the way for you and your compadres. Go far, really far.

2016 is turning out to be an annus horribilis. I would like, then, to start 2017 with a wipe-the-slate-clean attitude. Please, any pessimistic views expressed in this post are completely intentional. Do hold the blog owner responsible for them.

First off, as of the 1^st January 2017 every single immigrant, non-British citizen, EU or non-EU, with or without a British passport will be given 24 hours to leave the country. Only for a year, mind. It is an experiment, remember? Have family here? Tough, me too. I’ll see you at the airport. What’s that you’re saying? You’ve lived here ten, fifteen years? Look me in the eyes, son, I have been for almost twenty and I packed my suitcase last night. Anyway, the experiment is only for a year, remember? We’ll be back in twelve months. Well, we will be back if they don’t build The Wall, if they don’t pull up The Drawbridge, if they don’t create an Unbreakable Barrier around the British Isles. We will be back, but only if…

And now that we’re all gone (by the 2^nd January, remember), the real work begins. For starters, get rid of all the other "undesirables": the community activists, the feminists (or Feminazis, as they are more commonly, and pejoratively, known nowadays), human rights campaigners, disability rights advocates, anti-homophobia groups, pro-ethnic-diversity supporters, etc. Banish them all to a little island on the Outer Hebrides. Those smug Scots will probably welcome them. It should be easy to achieve this because for a whole year Parliament will cease to function. Instead the world’s oldest democratic institution will outsource all executive decisions to private companies. At the end of the day it is not as if corporations are not already running the country, is it? With Parliament silenced, the path to a free-market-driven, full privatisation will be clear. First it will be the turn of the NHS. Break it all down into tiny, little pieces and put each to tender. Make sure that the company that wins the contract(s) (why stop at one? What happens if a company wins all the contracts) is not the more transparent one but the one with stronger links to members of the government (who happen to be, lest we forget, the CEOs and managing directors of the biggest corporations). In the modern world we need to wrest control from those pesky EU bureaucrats. That is why for the next year your local hospital's A&E will be run by one company, the ambulance service by another, the admin and operations department by a third one, staff recruitment, including doctors and nurses, by another company, catering by another one and so on and so forth. Best case scenario, all these departments will be run by the same business entity. Because, nothing says “long-term friendship” like a politician making sure his mate (they go back years, did you know?) is well served by the state. Oh, and the patients, I hear you ask? Well, they are the lucky ones (no, seriously, they will be). If they get left behind and forgotten in a hospital ward in pain, they can always blame the ambulance person, the doctor, the nurses (alas, no Filipino nurses. Remember, we, immigrants, are all gone now). After all, these companies may be private but it is the taxpayer coughing up for the service so the taxpayer still has the right to complain (To whom? Do not ask! Look, it's only a year!). Yes, I know that this patient is in agony and that no one has come to see them in two hours and that if they do die in the end everyone will start blaming everybody else, but, patience, please. After all, it is only a twelve-month-long experiment.

Education is the next biggie. Ensure that all schools go down the academy route, namely, privatisation by stealth. Did I say stealth? No, no need to be secret. Remember, it is an experiment. You can do whatever you like for a whole year, in the open, and if you are really pleased with the outcome, then, make it permanent. Put the contract to build new schools or refurbish existing ones out to tender, but, please, please, please, ensure that the contract goes to the company that has links with the chairman of the trust that runs the academy. It is only fair, isn’t it? After all, academies are investment and all investment has a built-in return component in it. Please, spare no opportunity to make money: brand-new uniforms, after-school activities, half-term and holiday programmes. Charge premium for everything. And when the education budget runs dry because there is no money left in the kitty, start charging parents for the lessons their children were receiving gratis before.

Regarding climate change, tear up all the agreements. There is no climate change. It is all a conspiracy. Drill, baby, drill! You only have twelve months. It is not as if our planet will suffer if you stop talking about global warming and concentrate instead on the car industry. Promise more roads, more motorways, better and bigger automobiles. Come on, dare to dream! There is no one around now to oppose you.

Where else can you make changes? Do not worry; there are myriad issues that need urgent attention. Human rights, scrap them. For these twelve months only Darwin’s theory, survival of the fittest, will rule. Same with women’s rights, race relations act, disability laws, gay rights. We do not need them. Women, especially, will learn their place. If you get raped when wearing a short skirt, it is your fault. If, on the other hand, you were wearing a neck-to-toe long dress and you still get raped, it is still your fault still for provoking lust in a man. As for abortion, do not even mention the word for a year. No abortion, under any circumstances. No exceptions. There were only exceptions before because you had to compromise with the PC brigade. Speaking of which…

No more political correctness. Now, with no immigrants and "undesirables" in the country one does not have to be careful anymore with what one says. Bring back the Jim Davidsons of this world. At last people will stop prefacing their sentences with “I’m not being racist, but…”. Now it will be fine to say “I am being racist and I am loving it and this is what I want to say and this is what I really, really mean”.

Imagine this lot or similar in charge for a year

Foreign policy will be as hawkish as possible. The word is “sell”. Sell weapons, as many as possible. Go around the globe, visit each arms fair, Flog as many weapons as you can. And start as many wars as possible. These weapons need to be tested and used. Do not worry about those annoying, hippie-looking pacifists. They can be neutralised easily now. Remember that you removed Parliament. The people running the country are a nameless, faceless corporation.

All this was on my mind recently following the conversation with my daughter. Imagine the United Kingdom like that for twelve months. Elderly people being sponsored to travel to a certain clinic in Switzerland. All expenses paid for by one of the ruling corporations. Euthanasia on the sly. After all it will still be a Christian country so morality will still be important. Black- and brown-skinned Britons being told to go home (what home? They were born here. It does not matter. Go home!). Children being brainwashed into believing that a dog-eat-dog world is the only option out there. Normal job contracts would cease to exist in their current form. Instead, there would be a zero-hour culture for everything. Voluntary work would be made compulsory to compensate for unemployment. Paul Dacre and Rupert Murdoch being asked to be in charge of the media department for that whole year with porn baron Richard Desmond their loyal deputy.

And then, on the 1^st January 2018, I would arrive in Gatwick or Heathrow airport, desperate to see my family and finding a different nation. A better or worse one? One that has finally taken control of its own destiny or one that is sinking slowly without anyone noticing it?

I will be checking your answers from now until mid-September when I will return. In the meantime, thank you for your cyber-friendship. I really appreciate it.



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