No catch, No messing around
A mutton-headed old Mugwump:
in a weak moment Theresa agreed that Boris could come out to play with the others, provided he wasn’t rude to anybody, provided he didn’t promise anything, and provided he said exactly what he was told to say. Presumably Boris must have said he agreed to do all these things, because instead of having to stay in the boring old office, be rude to boring old foreigners and read boring old papers, he was allowed to come out and play. Oh how Theresa must be regretting believing him. The first thing he did was called Jeremy a mutton-headed old Mugwump. Presumably this is the sort of name that old-Etonians call each other. For all I know young-Etonians also call each other mutton-headed old Mugwumps. It’s probably some sort of jolly game, but of course Jeremy didn’t go to Eton. I think he went to a grammar school, but he doesn’t like to tell people that. He’d rather they thought he went to some sort of gritty, inner-city school. Anyway, because Jeremy didn’t go to Eton he didn’t know how to play the game. In fact, he said he thought it was a rather silly sort of game, and he wasn’t going to be so childish. Actually, he said, he really wanted to talk about issues. I’m sure he would, and I’m sure he wouldn’t stoop so low as to remind people about Boris promising the NHS would get 350 million quid a week extra just as soon as we left the rotten old EU, and so we’d jolly well better vote to leave it. Jeremy wouldn’t say that, but I’m sure he knows some people who would. This is exactly the sort of thing Theresa was worried about. That and those pesky issues. Now we, that is the rest of us who didn’t go to Eton, after we looked up Mugwump and found-out it meant an outsider, or somebody who remained aloof from politics, thought that rather described Jeremy quite well. Thinking about it a bit more, we might have thought Jeremy sounded a bit more statesmanlike than Boris. The sort of chap who might make a good Foreign Secretary, or possibly even-no, no surely not-a halfway decent Prime Minister?
When Theresa was what she thought about Boris calling Jeremy a mutton-headed old Mugwump, she replied she thought people would want somebody who could display real leadership, and had a safe pair of hands, to be Prime Minister. As off-the-cuff remarks go this was a bit unfortunate, coming as it did from somebody who was not so much elected Head-Girl and coincidentally Prime Minister, but was more crowned Queen of the May. True she was the most plausible candidate, but her rise to the top of the greasy pole was aided not a little by the fact all the other candidates had either knifed each other in the back, or had written porkies in their CVs. Jeremy on the other hand had not only won a leadership election but had managed to see off a subsequent challenge to his leadership, one that had at first appeared quite well orchestrated. Oh dear.
We might not consult Parliament about bombing Syria:
Ah, now herein lies a bit of a problem. You see we’ve been here before, haven’t we? Remember Tony Blair? He used to be Prime Minister and quite a popular chap, until he was ever so slightly economical with the truth regarding the war in Iraq. True he consulted Parliament, but Parliament can only make a reasoned decision if they have all the facts, that’s facts as in what’s really going on, rather than this is what we think/hope might be going on. Remember David Cameron? Honest Dave decided to consult Parliament about bombing those nasty ISIS people in Syria. Parliament told him to F-off, so he had to tell his American friends we wouldn’t be coming to play this time. Probably a good thing, because it transpires our efforts in bombing various people in Iraq are rather feeble. Not that the boys and girls in the Royal Air Force are lacking in skill and bravery et cetera et cetera, it’s just they are lacking in serviceable equipment and things to drop on other people.
Reminded of this by a flunky, Boris sulked for a bit in his office, muttering about Palmerston and gunboats. One of his aides told him we no longer had any gunboats. Boris nodded thoughtfully, then spoke to the assembled Press about how we were jolly well going to launch cruise missiles from our submarines. This rather ignores the fact that not many of our submarines can actually put to sea at the moment due to budget cuts and general lack of maintenance, but presumably we do have some cruise missiles we could launch if the submarines could get anywhere near the Mediterranean, and anyway I’m sure ‘The Donald’ would lend us some second-hand ones if we found ourselves a bit short. When asked about this, Boris replied that Jeremy was a mutton-headed old mugwump, and Theresa had a lovely pair of hands. Prompted by a minder, he corrected himself and said he meant a safe pair of hands.
Watch this channel for the next enthralling episode of the new Westminster soap opera, ‘Also Sprach Boris’.