Charlie Brooker and the Stupid Tory Prat
You've never had it so good, says Lord Young. By accident. Before promptly stepping down.
Just when Kate and Wills had made us forgot about the economy, Lord Young had to come along and spoil it all. But there must be other distractions...
Gah. And the distraction was all going so well. We were so delighted by news of the royal engagement, we'd stopped worrying. Yeah, we had. Don't know about you, but I was so overcome I had to spend 48 hours standing at my window, beaming at passers-by, waving a union flag and cooing with delight, like a pigeon opening a well-chosen Christmas present.
And, like all of us, I needed cheering up. It's been grim out there of late. We've had months of scary headlines about looming cuts - many of which were so alarming they may as well have been printed in a drippy-blood "horror" font over a photo of a raven perched atop a skull. Then there was the riot. You know, the massive student riot whose central message - strongly voiced concern about tuition fees - rather got lost amid the coverage that treated the smashing of a few windows and a dash of idiotic fire extinguisher- lobbing as if it was a full-blown uprising replete with cackling mobs and heads on poles.
Things were looking pretty dark. And then William proposed to Kate and suddenly everything was all right again. The news was full of upbeat bibble: shots of the couple smiling, or walking, or walking and smiling. Photographers desperately zooming in for a glimpse of Kate's ring as she clambered from the backseat of a car. David Cameron cheerfully recounting how, aged 14, he was so keen to get a decent view of Diana's wedding procession, he spent the entire night lying on a London street (this has now become the first recorded instance of him behaving like a dog turd).
In all the excitement, everyone plum forgot about the economy, apart from a few party poopers who sat around muttering (in their tens of millions) that they weren't really interested in this whole royal thing right now, and were actually much more concerned about what was going to happen next with this whole "cuts" business.
Still, they were easy to ignore. If you fixed your eyes on the happy royal headlines and cranked your iPod up to drown out the background murmuring, the dissenters scarcely seemed to exist at all. But then Lord Young went and spoiled everything by speaking to the Daily Telegraph, which rudely elbowed the economy back on to the front pages once again.
During the discussion Lord Young claimed that, despite the "so-called recession", many people had "never had it so good". There's a recording of the interview: you can just about hear Lord Young's voice over the clank of expensive cutlery and general satisfied hubbub filling the Roux brothers' Parliament Square restaurant he's dining in, as he cheerfully dismisses the potential loss of 100,000 public sector jobs as a number so insignificant it falls "within the margin of error".
Sadly, there aren't any accompanying pictures, so we don't know whether he delivered this insight while enjoying a starter of Loch Duart salmon, leek, champagne velouté, fine herbs and avruga - or, perhaps, a main course of veal accompanied by sweetbreads, summer vegetables and smoked pommes mousseline. Maybe he was eating spatchcock social worker in a blood-and-port jus. We'll probably never know. But whatever he had in his gob, he came across as a touch heartless, and distant - almost like a clueless toff in a posh restaurant, in fact.
The headlines were predictably negative. Cameron was so annoyed he sat down and angrily wobbled his jowls for a full 45 minutes (probably), while Young ran around trying to unsay his own words. His remarks had been "inaccurate and insensitive", he now claimed. "I should have chosen my words much more carefully," he added. Yes. He should have chosen his words more carefully. Or at least reduced the volume of his words to such a degree that they were occurring solely in his head and not coming out of his mouth where other people could hear them and get the impression that they were in some way representative of his beliefs.
Anyway, at the time of writing, he's just resigned, which has put the miserable economy firmly centre-stage again. Cameron must be praying for some fresh nationwide distraction, but that's not likely to happen on its own. He's got to get creative and manufacture his own stupid news. Here are some quick suggestions for Cameron:
1. Call a live press conference, during which you claim to have made contact with aliens. Then point at the sky and say, "They'll be arriving any moment - from behind that cloud." Keep pointing until the economy is better. This will definitely keep the 24-hour rolling-news networks occupied. For the newspapers, you'll have to go to phase 2, namely:
2. Beg Wills and Kate to release a pre-wedding sex tape. The subsequent headline apocalypse would cause Fleet Street to run out of ink until some point midway through 2013, which might give the economy time to recover - or at least give the Royal Mint time to release a new series of banknotes with popular figures such as Harry Potter or Susan Boyle on them, which would distract viewers (in a positive way) each time they were used as background graphics to illustrate harrowing stories about the new Great Depression on the 10 O'Clock News.
3. Cry and apologise constantly. Just weep openly during every Prime Minister's Questions, every interview, every public appearance. Weep and smack yourself over the head while blubbing about how bad the economy is and begging for the nation's forgiveness. Eventually, we'll probably be dumb enough to give it to you.
Sauce is free.
Dear sweet chocolate cookies, I love Charlie Brooker.
Just when Kate and Wills had made us forgot about the economy, Lord Young had to come along and spoil it all. But there must be other distractions...
Gah. And the distraction was all going so well. We were so delighted by news of the royal engagement, we'd stopped worrying. Yeah, we had. Don't know about you, but I was so overcome I had to spend 48 hours standing at my window, beaming at passers-by, waving a union flag and cooing with delight, like a pigeon opening a well-chosen Christmas present.
And, like all of us, I needed cheering up. It's been grim out there of late. We've had months of scary headlines about looming cuts - many of which were so alarming they may as well have been printed in a drippy-blood "horror" font over a photo of a raven perched atop a skull. Then there was the riot. You know, the massive student riot whose central message - strongly voiced concern about tuition fees - rather got lost amid the coverage that treated the smashing of a few windows and a dash of idiotic fire extinguisher- lobbing as if it was a full-blown uprising replete with cackling mobs and heads on poles.
Things were looking pretty dark. And then William proposed to Kate and suddenly everything was all right again. The news was full of upbeat bibble: shots of the couple smiling, or walking, or walking and smiling. Photographers desperately zooming in for a glimpse of Kate's ring as she clambered from the backseat of a car. David Cameron cheerfully recounting how, aged 14, he was so keen to get a decent view of Diana's wedding procession, he spent the entire night lying on a London street (this has now become the first recorded instance of him behaving like a dog turd).
In all the excitement, everyone plum forgot about the economy, apart from a few party poopers who sat around muttering (in their tens of millions) that they weren't really interested in this whole royal thing right now, and were actually much more concerned about what was going to happen next with this whole "cuts" business.
Still, they were easy to ignore. If you fixed your eyes on the happy royal headlines and cranked your iPod up to drown out the background murmuring, the dissenters scarcely seemed to exist at all. But then Lord Young went and spoiled everything by speaking to the Daily Telegraph, which rudely elbowed the economy back on to the front pages once again.
During the discussion Lord Young claimed that, despite the "so-called recession", many people had "never had it so good". There's a recording of the interview: you can just about hear Lord Young's voice over the clank of expensive cutlery and general satisfied hubbub filling the Roux brothers' Parliament Square restaurant he's dining in, as he cheerfully dismisses the potential loss of 100,000 public sector jobs as a number so insignificant it falls "within the margin of error".
Sadly, there aren't any accompanying pictures, so we don't know whether he delivered this insight while enjoying a starter of Loch Duart salmon, leek, champagne velouté, fine herbs and avruga - or, perhaps, a main course of veal accompanied by sweetbreads, summer vegetables and smoked pommes mousseline. Maybe he was eating spatchcock social worker in a blood-and-port jus. We'll probably never know. But whatever he had in his gob, he came across as a touch heartless, and distant - almost like a clueless toff in a posh restaurant, in fact.
The headlines were predictably negative. Cameron was so annoyed he sat down and angrily wobbled his jowls for a full 45 minutes (probably), while Young ran around trying to unsay his own words. His remarks had been "inaccurate and insensitive", he now claimed. "I should have chosen my words much more carefully," he added. Yes. He should have chosen his words more carefully. Or at least reduced the volume of his words to such a degree that they were occurring solely in his head and not coming out of his mouth where other people could hear them and get the impression that they were in some way representative of his beliefs.
Anyway, at the time of writing, he's just resigned, which has put the miserable economy firmly centre-stage again. Cameron must be praying for some fresh nationwide distraction, but that's not likely to happen on its own. He's got to get creative and manufacture his own stupid news. Here are some quick suggestions for Cameron:
1. Call a live press conference, during which you claim to have made contact with aliens. Then point at the sky and say, "They'll be arriving any moment - from behind that cloud." Keep pointing until the economy is better. This will definitely keep the 24-hour rolling-news networks occupied. For the newspapers, you'll have to go to phase 2, namely:
2. Beg Wills and Kate to release a pre-wedding sex tape. The subsequent headline apocalypse would cause Fleet Street to run out of ink until some point midway through 2013, which might give the economy time to recover - or at least give the Royal Mint time to release a new series of banknotes with popular figures such as Harry Potter or Susan Boyle on them, which would distract viewers (in a positive way) each time they were used as background graphics to illustrate harrowing stories about the new Great Depression on the 10 O'Clock News.
3. Cry and apologise constantly. Just weep openly during every Prime Minister's Questions, every interview, every public appearance. Weep and smack yourself over the head while blubbing about how bad the economy is and begging for the nation's forgiveness. Eventually, we'll probably be dumb enough to give it to you.
Sauce is free.
Dear sweet chocolate cookies, I love Charlie Brooker.