More Clarkson's Farm Than Politics.
Rishi’s speech sounded more like a Jackanory narration to toddlers than a Prime Ministerial announcement.
Blimey! Not a day goes by without more shit gathering as it heads towards the politically proverbial fan than a year’s collection of dung on Clarkson’s Farm, and it’s all I can do to keep up.
Rishi’s speech sounded more like a Jackanory narration to toddlers than a Prime Ministerial announcement. His delivery, supposedly calm and measured, was enough to send a chronic insomniac into a six-month state of comatosis, and save the NHS millions of pounds annually on sleeping pills. Keep this up Rishi, and the Health Secretary will be kissing your arse until the forthcoming General Election when it’s all too late.
Given the unlikelihood of Starmer hiring Rishi for this purpose, it seems our potential PM-in-waiting has made his own set of pledges. Sounding more like an office manager than a political leader, as is his way, Sir Kier announced six “first steps” - note how he refrained from calling them ‘baby steps’, as a “down payment” on what his party would offer the country. Omitting, of course, any further mention of quite possibly being unable to pay the balance at a later date.
Nonetheless, he is intent on recruiting 6,500 teachers, paid for through ending tax breaks for private schools, and one would assume providing 6.500 stab vests that would come off the Home Office budget as a recruitment incentive to anyone considering applying. Perhaps if he put all the neighbourhood police officers to “reduce antisocial behaviour “he speaks of towards assisting the teachers most problems could be stemmed at source.
Cutting NHS waiting lists by providing 160.000 more appointments each month looks promising. Now, given that there could be around 10 million people on the waiting list, the maths suggest a rough figure of 1,920,000 patients seen per year would clear the backlog just in time for the next General Election in five years, for which the Tories as the potential new incomers would be truly grateful. Or, is this just me being cynical regarding the historical two-party politics we’ve all come to know and love?
Given Starmer’s former career as Director of Public Persecutions - I think I’ve got that right, shouldn’t we all be joyously welcoming something called a ‘Border Security Command’ and do we need one? Admittedly, the use of the term ‘Command’ does make joint agency cooperation sound more official in status. But isn’t it just a rebranding of existing cooperation, or, so far are we expected to believe the left hand not really knowing what the right has done before it?
Now, the astute and memory-efficient among you will be able to cast your mind back to a previous post where I’d solved the migrant situation without the need to send anyone to the lovely climate that awaits them in Rwanda (www.thealmightygob.com/p/bong-no-this-isnt-big-ben-but-close). I didn’t, however, get anywhere close to mentioning my plan to stop the boats as it occurred to me that the very mention of RPG deterrents or rolls of barbed wire along the Kent coast may just cause brain fog among those who don’t understand dry humour, to say nothing of depriving the many who enjoy spectating from the beaches as the dinghies roll in.
Still, there was one thing about Rishi’s speech that I’ve been saying for more months than I care to remember that we both agree on. The world isn’t a safe place, and nowadays, perhaps more than ever, Britain. Something I’ve written about before, and it won’t be too long before I repeat it.
