Tuesday 22 September 2020

Covid and the British Tradition of Freedom

Much attention today has been paid to Boris Johnson's response today, when asked why the UK death rate from Covid is higher than in comparable Western European Countries, that it came down to our tradition of freedom.

We're grateful to Rodney Stoke - the chair of the Beaker Boris Johnson Gaslight Appreciation Society. Here he tells us exactly what the Prime Minister meant.

Here at the Boris Johnson Gaslight Appreciation Society, we do our very best to believe the best of whatever our glorious mop-head says and does. When he has another illegitimate child, we say it proves he has energy. When he does a U-turn, he is listening. When he is inadvertently racist or homophobic, he's just being Boris.

But the controversy over his remarks that the UK is a "freedom-loving country" has been fabricated by the press. We should, as the Prime Minister implies, be proud of our death rate, proof as it is of our dedication to freedom: our freedom not to obey orders, for instance. Other countries may have a long history of following orders to the letter. And we can see where it leads. Whereas we live for freedom.

Our freedom to drive our children the length of the country while suffering from an infectious, potentially-fatal disease. Our freedom to get eye tests in whichever Durham town we want. Our freedom to go around hospitals shaking hands with infectious people. To live in whichever of our second homes we fancy during a pandemic. 

Where can I stop? As an Englishman, I demand the right that my tax should be used to outsource disease prevention to friends of the Establishment without going out to tender - is this not what Nelson died at Waterloo for? I demand the right for James Delingpole to go into corner shops and photograph his ugly, unmasked face for the delectation of his following of 12-year-old Edgelords.

I demand the freedom to celebrate our world-beating achievements in dealing with Covid without people thinking I'm some kind of idiot.

I demand that the Football Association, Badminton England, the Church of England, the Licensed Victuallers' Association, and every other cultural, sports, and business body are free to spend the days after each appearance of the Prime Minister wondering what the hell it means for them this time. I demand that all attendance limits for all activities in England should have the freedom to be whatever multiple of three the Prime Minister feels like. 

I demand the right to work from the office even though I don't need to. Or work from home even though I am a supervisor on a mushroom farm. Or work from someone else's office, just to annoy them.

I demand the freedom for Neil Whatsit, former Chief Statistical Covid Nerd, to sleep with his girlfriend and resign afterwards. I demand the freedom to get out, shop, lick lamp-posts, and go to sleep at night with my teddy bear with the face of Toby Young sewn onto it - without my mother telling me I'm weird and need to grow up.

And above all, I demand the freedom to die that the economy may live. Set me free, Boris - I'm ready to to die for England! 

- Rodney Stoke.
  

Please support this blog

1 comment :

  1. Freedon is a word used to justify people not accepting the responsibility that goes with the word. Responsibility to ourselves to protect others, to protect the NHS and also to Protect Boris and co, particularly Dominic, so we should all migrate to Barnard Castle.

    ReplyDelete

Drop a thoughtful pebble in the comments bowl