…what happened to Part 2? That was the WRITING A MEGASAGA competition! Where have you beeeeen???

We are nearly in phase 2 of the Pandemic. Phase 1, disease spreads, people die, people panic, governments thrash about in utter confusion. The right wing ones generally make a complete hash of it, tens of thousands die. The left wing ones make a complete hash of it, tens of thousands die.

The morons, of course, make more of a hash of it than anybody. Trump, Bolsanaro, Putin and Johnson, highest death tolls in the world. Why??? I guess being morally challenged does make a difference in taking the threat of death to a population you really don’t care about, apart from their votes, seriously.

The latest scandal in the UK – the idiotic Great Trek of Boris Johnson’s minder and puppeteer Dominic Cummings – is the perfect analogy and metaphor for the incompetence of the ruling right in a democracy, when they are so riven by their need to please their big business funders and yet retain the belief and credibility they need to continue to extract votes from the naive and credulous electorate. Who, largely insipid and compliant, fall victim to their every trick.

For those not entirely familiar with the details of the scandal, here’s a summary:

A CUMMING PLAN Part 1

Dominic Cummings is the evil genius who designed the Brexit win for the Tories and the cabal of right-wingers and extreme left wingers who prefer Little England, without immigrants, and a mythical Albion of 1955 and fish and chips to international engagement and being part of a substantial trade bloc, as brilliantly portrayed in the wonderful Channel 4 film https://www.channel4.com/programmes/brexit-the-uncivil-war/on-demand/65804-001 the Uncivil War. Watch it, Cumberbatch is terrific.

The Cumming Plan strategy for media manipulation consists of 3 words, based on the Power of 3: Repetition, Obfuscation and Distraction. For Brexit, his immortal slogans were Take Back Control; then Get Brexit Done, which landed us with Boris Johnson in the last election and his shower of Rabid Right pro-Brexit loonies.

Then along comes the Pandemic. Cummings immediately leapt into the public information campaign, reputedly advising PM Johnson to rely on Herd Immunity in the early days. Did I mention Cummings and Johnson share a common bond of detestation of the common people or ‘hoi polloi’, or ‘great unwashed’, which phrases are no doubt pretty common amongst Tory grandees. Luckily, some intelligence came out of Imperial College, and it was pointed out to them that if they relied on Herd Immunity – ie do nothing: when most people have had the disease they’ll be immune – could result in 500,000 deaths, an absolutely overwhelmed NHS and lots of dead Tories. So they woke up a little and Dom devised his “Stay at Home. Protect the NHS, Save Lives” The Power of 3, see? Cummings’ signature slogan manufacturing process.

At which point the Government sat back and devised cunning plans. Such as Stay in Government. Forget to protect the NHS by not buying, ordering or manufacturing sufficient PPE (Protective masks and gowns), and Make Sure those who die are the elderly, the sick and disabled. This latter they achieved by sending people with the virus to “recover” at Care Homes where thousands caught the virus and died.

Another bright idea was to not bother getting a testing regime established. Ignoring the excellent examples of South Korea, Vietnam, New Zealand who obviously got it right with testing tracing and isolating, they continued to waffle and piffle and faff. Made much worse when chief waffler, piffler and faffer Johnson was taken very ill with the virus. Well, as he had not hesitated to shake hands, as he had not stayed at home or followed his own scientists’ advice, is not surprising. (My theory is he was following the example of role model Trump, who at this stage believed the virus to be a ‘hoax’! A Chinese world-domination strategy). And of course the people who were in intimate contact with Johnson went down with it as well, including Dominic Cummings.

Proving that the Virus was happy to infect anybody, not just the Hoi Polloi but even ‘us.’ Toryism is, surprisingly, no defence against a pathogen.

Ooooh, major wake-up call!

All of a sudden the Tory establishment started to listen to the scientists, to look at the examples of successful countries, to invest in PPE and tests to establish who has the disease and who has had the disease. Delay followed delay. Excuse followed excuse for delay. By which time the fatality rate had reached at least 30,000, one of the highest in the world..

CUMMINGS’ GOINGS

At this point, Cummings and wife completely panic. Both have the virus. They also have a kid.

When in doubt, flee! Bundling his viruses into the Range Rover Discovery Sport Diesel SUV, he set off for mummy. Mummy would know what to do! (No surprise Dom drives a diesel car, which emits poisons no doubt only affecting common people, proving that the Climate Emergency is not his concern) And it is only 264 miles to Durham and mumsy and dadsy…

(“Stay at home. Protect the NHS. Save Lives”)

(Did he stop to refuel? https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-8357633/Which-SUVs-best-real-world-fuel-economy.html)

Having arrived, however, despite Dom’s excuse that he was only going North so he could use elderly parents for babysitting, the happy little virus-ridden family settled in to a charming holiday cottage on the family estate for a well-deserved break. And when wifie Mary’s birthday came around, they had a perfectly lovely jaunt to Barnard Castle, and a jolly day by the river.

Sadly, sooner or later even a demented SPAD has to stop throwing a sickie (“Stay at home. Protect the NHS. Save Lives”) and get back to work, especially since his boss had returned to work and is, of course, lost without him. So they drove their viruses the 264 miles back to London.

SPURTING AND CUMMING

Unfortunately for Dom the Guardian and other newspapers got hold of the story. The fury of the Brits erupted within days. “All right for some!” They cried. “Exceptionalism!” they yelled. “One rule for the toffs!” they spurted.

Poor little Dom dom. His contemptuous snapping at the press lurking outside his house didn’t work, so Boris was told to allow him to make a Statement to the Press from the Rose Garden at 10 Downing Street.

So Dom “explained”. No apology whatsoever. (“Never apologise, never explain”). After all, how could HE ever do anything wrong? Plus, as Spinmeister Central he had always had total control of the agenda, and now all he had to do to Take Back Control was explain. With appropriate spin!

More fury erupted. Even those who had been duped into voting Tory (“Get Brexit Done”) in the last election, the so-called first time Tory voters, began to realise the true nature of the dreadful government they’d enabled.

Memo from Cummings to BJ and Tory interviewees: ‘Pay attention! The word to use is “Explanation”. You will repeat “DC has explained” and VERY IMPORTANT include “Child” and ‘There was a 4-year old child to consider” and “Did what any concerned parent would do”‘

It didn’t work. While Twitter was almost submerged beneath near-identical tweets from Tory MPs and ministers making use of the phrases above, more than 40 Tory MPs expressed disgust and disbelief.

A CUMMING PLAN Part 2

Time to get his Spinnmeister Central self-defence strategy in place! Remember the trio? Repetition, Obfuscation and Distraction?

Memo from DC to BJ and all Tory interviewees: Pay attention! The phrase of the week is “move on”. BJ, unless you repeat “Move on” at least 5 times in the forthcoming briefing, and as often as possible in the media, I will have to resign and where will you be? Finished! Selling the Big Issue outside Westminster. Remember during Brexit how I gave you sweeties every time you said “Get Brexit done”. This time it’s lollipops!

Dutifully, those Tories terrified that Dom, puppet meister without whom Boris would turn back into piffle, paffle and waffle, parroted their given words and phrases.

But alas……so many of the pesky MSM would not move on. By now DomDom was beginning to feel just a little miffed….thinking time….the paranoid android persona had to be resisted! Pacing….muttering….they will not defeat me they will not defeat me…

“I have it!” and lifting his crystal-studded android phone to his mechanical ear, “get me Johnson!” he commanded. Repetition and Obfuscation had failed, time for Distraction. “Johnson! Now but me no buts, piffle me no Pfaffle. When were we to have Test Track Trace in place?” Wiping ersatz sweat from his domed forehead, he listened to the muttered reply.

“Bollox to that, you worm!” he yelled down the phone, which quivered in terror. “Tomorrow!!! That’s when! No, I don’t give a fuck how ready it is. Carpe DM! Bring it forward. To TOMORROW, worm. Get me? And NEXT, ease the lockdown! And NEXT change the Furlough conditions! And NEXT open the schools! Barrage them with news! A new news every day! Watch how quickly they forget all about me!”

And so they did.

What’s next? Will the Crack of Dom sound? Will Cummings going? Is the most exciting story in the news about to end with a whimper? Obfuscated and Distracted out of court so that the Android gets away with it?

It’s one rule for them….

Captions by Peter Blackadder