Boris Johnson Addresses The Nation
As Brexit looms, the economy reels, and the future looks bleak, the Prime Minister steps forward, backward, and slightly sideways as he looks for the microphone which was right in front of him all the time
Hello chums, er, citizens of this great United England. No, well, ah, this is all rather tricky without Domenic telling me what to say. Still, struggle on, as Winston would have said if he were fortunate enough to have hair like mine.
Righty-oh, where was I? Oh yes! United something-or-other. Northern votes, anyhow. That’s what’s important. Keep those northern votes. Not the far north, of course. That’s something called Scottish-land I believe. But we can ignore them because we’ve already taken all their North Sea oil revenues and spent them on super wheezes. And besides, who even knows where Glasburgh is?
So, yes, citizens of United Northern votes, I speak to you today as your Prime Minister. Unfortunately, due to absolutely no fault of my own whatsoever, the perfidious European Union has completely refused to concede to my perfectly reasonable demands that we get all the good things we used to have without any of the paying-in nonsense and with lots more good things just for us that they can’t have because, well, um, they’re foreign. And everyone knows foreigners can’t be trusted. Especially when they speak foreign languages and correct you for getting conjugations wrong on your mid-term exam.
Foreigners are not like us. Remember: we are only breaking international law in a very specific and limited way. So other countries can absolutely definitely trust us to stick to our word when we sign agreements. No question about it. Definitely.
As I told President-Elect Biden the other day when he called me to discuss our position on Northern Ireland and the Good Friday Agreement, we share his, um, values. We are absolutely nothing like the departing Trump Administration with its endless lies, its pandering to the low-IQ and ignorant, its law-breaking, and its refusal to accept reality. No, we are absolutely nothing like that. We share President-Elect Biden’s values and I think it was rather mean of him to tell me that if I fuck up a deal with Europe and fuck up the Good Friday Agreement because I’m a bumbling moron then the USA will not only refuse to enter into a minor but fantastically face-saving trade agreement with us but will slap tariffs on all British products exported to the USA, thus crippling even further the economy I’ve so successfully almost destroyed myself.
I mean, well, it’s all terribly unfair. I expect he’s jealous of my great hair and my excellent Winston impersonation. Calling me a flabby constipated idiot was, I must admit, not something I wanted to hear. But let’s bygones be bygones. I’m prepared to forgive the President-Elect his little scolding so we can work hand-in-hand to build a great future together. Even if he’s now refusing to take my calls.
So anyhow, back to jolly old England. You may have heard various scaremongering nonsense being uttered by companies large and small about how my total incompetence and lack of judgement will mean that after the hateful transition period expires at the end of this year the ports will be blocked, the roads will be jammed, and there will be no food in the supermarkets.
To which I say, nonsense! There will always be food in the supermarkets. Good old British turnips. Good old British carrots. Good old British past-their-sell-by-date tins of Spam. Thanks to our far-sighted chartering of aircraft to bring Romanian crop-pickers into the country, the turnip crop of 2021 is guaranteed to be absolutely splendid. Remember the spirit of the blitz!
Because, make no mistake about it, we need that wartime spirit. In our battle with the cruel and heartless European Union that wanted to trap us within its open borders and easy trading arrangements and eighty years of peace and prosperity, we need every citizen to rally behind the flag and stand firmly behind the government. Or perhaps in front of it, if people start throwing things at me. But whatever it is, remember that wonderful wartime spirit that carried us through endless cock-ups and military disasters until the Soviets drained the Wehrmacht and the USA brought its astonishing industrial might to bear.
There’s a lesson there for all of us. I just wish I knew what it was. If only dear old Domenic were here to tell me. Oh well, he’ll be back soon enough, I expect. I must say, having Gove looking smug doesn’t help at all, especially because he looks like one of those awful little Star Wars puppets, all glasses and no chin, sneering and pouting endlessly and ever so jealous because he doesn’t have hair like mine.
Some of you may be asking yourselves, apart from turnips, what will be different in the thing we’re stepping into on January first 2021? Well, for a start, we won’t be hobbled by EU anti-competition laws. This means we will be able to make significant investments in private companies that are developing technologies that will one day be world-beating. It is rather amazing how many of my good chums are, um, involved in these companies and will therefore be receiving quite enormous sums of taxpayer money. Which will, let me assure you, be well spent. Very well spent indeed.
Another super great and rather spiffing thing will be our escape from the heavy hand of International Law. This terrible foreign imposition would have forced us to comply with treaties we’ve signed and prevent us from doing whatever we want on the spur of the moment. By leaving the EU we’ve returned sovereignty to Parliament. Which, I must say, is rather jolly now that I have such a large majority. But never fear, good citizens, if those frightful back-benchers rebel, Boris will never let Parliament stand in the way of a jolly good vote-winning wheeze. Which is why in January we’re piloting a scheme to hand out cloth caps to everyone living north of Birmingham — a city which, I am told, is somewhere near Hadrian’s Wall and in which they speak an impenetrable dialect that we’re going to study by funding a chum of mine at Oxford to send unpaid interns up there to collect samples of Brumspeak, which is apparently what they call their lingo in that part of the world.
Leaving the EU will also mean we can rebuild our military might. Some cynics may claim this will be difficult with a plummeting Pound, a collapse of businesses everywhere leading to massive tax revenue shortfalls, and a rising cost of imported materials. To which I say: nonsense! One of my very good chums has already received generous funding to study strategic alternatives. Thanks to him, and some very acceptable home-made gin, I’ve come up with the most cunning plan imaginable.
We’re going to leap ahead and cancel our ruinously expensive planned future purchase of F-35 aircraft. These would have eventually been placed on British airstrips and on our wonderful British aircraft carrier, which as some have unkindly pointed out, has no actual aircraft on it and won’t for another ten years. Which is, as I always say about such matters, entirely beside the point. Anyhow, we’re going to buy some drones from Amazon and duct-tape pistols underneath them. This will enable us to lead the way in pilotless aircraft and show the world what we’re really made of.
We are also going to invest in our world-famous Special Forces. From 2021 onward everyone who passes Selection will receive a Boris Loves Britain mug with my face on one side and the Union Flag on the other. Studies conducted by a good chum of mine, the Right Honourable Pippa Groinworthy, which were I must say carried out for the very reasonable and cost-effective sum of twenty million pounds, show conclusively that Boris mugs will absolutely make up for the lack of ammunition, night vision equipment, and other fripperies that we will be subjecting to rational and far-sighted cost control measures after we’ve left the EU.
This is the real spirit of the blitz and I expect everyone who truly loves England, I mean, Britland, to rally behind the flag and stop paying attention to misleading stories about my endless cock-ups, cluelessness, and self-indulgences. Nobody whined about dear Winston drinking eight bottles of Pol Roger a day so I think it’s tremendously unfair that some people complain about me doing the same thing. As if carefully studying the habits of Britain’s greatest Prime Minister were a crime!
And speaking of crimes, it really is no good tearing down statues of eminent British philanthropists just because they made their fortunes in the slave trade. I’d like to remind certain unpatriotic people that if it hadn’t been for the heaps of money we made transporting and selling certain individuals, who by the way were merely idling around waiting for us to come and collect them, as a study by my good chum Viscount Damien Dimsworthy has conclusively shown thanks to me channeling an insignificant ten million in his direction via an Arts Council grant, we wouldn’t have built the Empire. So the point is, um, point is… oh yes! The point is, our glorious Industrial Revolution was funded by money from the Strategic Logistical Allocation of Valued Excess Re-deployable Youngsters trade, as henceforth all British history books will refer to it, and the subsequent Industrial Revolution enabled us to build the greatest Empire the world has ever seen. Quod erat demonstrandum, as one might say if one were in the habit of quoting Latin tags in order to try to seem slightly less stupid than one actually is.
So as the year draws to a close and we continue to battle the terrible pandemic that rages across the land and threatens to kill more people than actually inhabit our glorious island nation, at least according to the projections my team of experts has shown me, and frankly I see no reason to doubt their Excel model because it has oodles and oodles of rows in it and looks tremendously complicated, we must band together in the spirit of the blitz and work together for a glorious future. I want no more complaining, no more snide comments about my total incapacity to remember anything for more than a, um, more than, oh, whatever it is, you know what I mean.
You voted me into power and you gave me an unbeatable majority. No matter how utterly useless I may be, I’m here for the next four years at least! So remember, when the power cuts begin and the supermarket shelves are empty and millions of jobs have disappeared never to be replaced in our lifetimes: you voted for all of it.
What dreadful chumps you must be!
This is your Prime Minister, signing off. Can’t keep the chilled Pol Roger waiting, you know!
