The Doomsday Clock may be telling us that the human species has never been closer to obliteration, yet it’s not all bad news right now.
British workers will soon have to graft until they’re 68, but with the state of the NHS many will escape that through early death. Gas prices are falling rapidly, meaning we might get a cut in our bills some time next year. Or the one after.
The North of England may have less investment than anywhere in advanced economies outside of Greece, but if you’re in the South, you’re laughing.
And it’s Coronation Year, meaning that come May, Britain will put on a glorious show of pageantry that will turn every other country green. Which has to be good for the planet.
Although I harbour some doubts. King Charles wants his moment of glory to be a “reflection of modern, diverse Britain”, featuring choirs from refugee, LGBTQ+ and disability groups. Good luck with that. We have a cynical government desperate to win back its core support so it will surely remind Charles that he’s not picking up the tab, hijack the current hysterical anti-woke backlash and put on their own post-crowning parade outside Westminster Abbey.
Which will basically be the opposite of Danny Boyle’s 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony which celebrated the likes of the NHS, suffragettes, CND protestors and immigrants.
If King Charles was fuming at his leaky pen, wait until he claps eyes on this spectacle. At the front will be an iron-effect sculpture of Margaret Thatcher, dressed as Boudica the ancient warrior queen, holding up a spear with a miner’s head on it, her chariot crushing Argentinians.
Behind her will be a hologram of Winston Churchill, with Boris Johnson’s face superimposed, his mouth saying we’re “Getting Coronation Done”, his hand invoicing taxpayers for a £500k speaking fee.
Instead of immigrants disembarking from SS Windrush as Danny Boyle did, Suella Braverman will oversee security guards dragging asylum seekers on to an Air Rwanda plane, while behind them kids are being snatched from hotels.
Instead of celebrating NHS nurses we will see dying pensioners wearing anti-Covid masks getting thrown out of hospital beds, and nurses queuing outside food banks as Simon Clarke MP yells “budget better you wasters” through a megaphone.
As in 2012 we will pay tribute to the greats of British children’s literature with Dominic Raab dressed as Flashman the public school bully, Jacob Rees-Mogg as The Beano’s Lord Snooty, with the Child Catcher being played this time by Prince Andrew (well he’s not allowed inside the Abbey). But there will be no Paddington, nor Euston, Waterloo or Victoria as the Government still won’t have settled with striking railway workers.
Instead of an appearance by Mr Bean we will have Jim Davidson doing a Chalky White sketch.
There will be a depiction of a modern British High Street, or rather a row of Wetherspoon’s pubs and charity shops where banks and libraries once stood, and a flypast by a Red Arrow (it has to go it alone as what’s left of our military hardware has been lent to Ukraine).
The grand finale will entail a Meghan Markle lookalike parading in the nude, with vein-popping gammons throwing dung at her to the tune of Land of Hope and Glory, as Liz Truss parachutes into Parliament Square, does that weird curtsy to the new king, then screams “all foreign cheese is a disgrace”.
I’m welling-up just thinking about it.
