Led By The Nose

Each new day bears another eloquent testimony to the knuckle-dragging imbecility of those donkeys who pretend to preside over the governance of this lovely Kingdom of Northumbria.

As I've previously explained, the Kingdom has a monarch and a cardboard-cutout constitutional democracy, which is designed to pacify naïve natives and impress visitors; it's currently administered by a combination of 2 otherwise rival political factions: the Trees and the Liberationists. This state of affairs – or so we are told - arose because the battered and bewildered Northumbrians failed to vote for any one faction in convincing enough numbers to secure an overall majority (despite the extensive and assiduous vote-rigging which went on in some Redistributionist circles). Horse trading therefore ensued between the respective faction leaders, resulting in the seemingly blessed compromise solution presented to us. Whatever.

Naturally, when 2 factions hold the reins of this fantasy coalition government, each side is obliged to abandon its original political objectives; manifestos are torn up before the ink is even dry. (It would be misleading of me to suggest that they are forced to abandon their principles, since it's evident that they don't have one between them.) Each faction in the alliance counterbalances the other; this inhibits any of the fanatical and bizarre ideas that might otherwise have taken shape as policy with which to bludgeon and afflict the long-suffering populace. The fact that the ratio of Northumbrians represented by the 2 colluding ruling factions doesn't correspond to a 50-50 split has no bearing on the matter; the Liberationists only represent an insignificant percentage of doddery ancients and wild-eyed eccentrics, but for all this, they wield considerable power over the otherwise bizarre and fanatical aspirations of the Trees.

With all this in mind, it strikes me as rather odd that the seedy and disreputable honourable and esteemed members of the Redistributionist faction – now outnumbered by the paired factions in government - have recently adopted the habit of referring to the present administration as 'the Tree-led government.' This new tactic is probably intended to lay the blame for any disasters squarely at the feet of the Trees, who are sworn enemies of the Redistributionists.

In view of the fact that the Trees – like themselves – don't have the full weight of public support, this epithet flies in the face of reality. The Trees are in no position to lead anything. (Although I'm given to understand that at the end of the morning the Tree Leader Caedmeron is usually the first man out of the Witangemot assembly hall, and he leads the way so that he gets his lavish and expensive public-funded lunch before anyone else.) But as the Franks often say, 'Noblesse oblige.'

I'm not sure that Edweird the Milliner has enough influence to lead himself out of a paper bag - let alone the faction he heads up, so he has no room to talk.

So from now on I'm going to refer to Edweird the Milliner and his cohort of slavering drones droning slaves cronies as the Fly Agaric–led Opposition, since that seems to be the active ingredient behind their incoherent and delirious blitherings.

Just thought I'd let you know…