Britain is a laughing stock

There is no need to turn on the copious comedy channels available on our televisions, the ongoing comedy show that is otherwise described as the United Kingdom knocks them all into a cocked hat.

Teachers

With nurses, train drivers and university lecturers taking strike action, the teachers’ unions were feeling left out. They too have decided that they want a piece of the action or, more accurately, inaction. In the same way as the nursing unions seem to have given up caring for their patients, the teachers’ unions no longer seem to care about their pupils.

It is hard to know where to start with the adverse effects of the Covid-19 measures, but lockdown has left children and teenagers traumatised. Their education has been adversely affected, thousands have still not returned to school after lockdown, and nobody seems to know where they are. And the same people who not only complied with the lockdown policies but repeatedly called for tougher and more prolonged lockdown measures, are now preparing to finish the job of ruining the educational chances of a whole generation. Perhaps that has not had you rolling about with laughter, but there’s more to come.

Border patrol

This one will have you ‘Kraken’ up, I promise. Having given up all pretence at policing our shores, making serious efforts to dissuade illegal immigration, or taking appropriate measures with the hundreds of thousands who do arrive, on 5 January the UK government devolved this function to the general public. Those of us living on the coast are urged to look for warning signs such as ‘seeing boats moored up in strange or isolated places or at strange times’ and ‘boats unloading scared or suspicious people’. This so called ‘Operation Kraken’ is described as a ‘a joint law enforcement operation tackling maritime border crime.’

It is not entirely clear between whom this is a ‘joint’ operation but, presumably, it replaces the previous ‘joint operation’ between the people smugglers and the UK Border Force whereby the former rake in huge profits by sticking people into rubber dinghies on the French coast, and the latter provides tea and friendly welcoming parties along the South East coast of the UK.

Catch a bus

Every cloud has a silver lining and there appears to be one coming the way of your local bus service. Ditch all your outmoded ideas regarding taking a bus. Activities like shopping, visiting friends, going to the pub or just keeping dry on a rainy day are ‘so yesterday’. Never mind the AA or the RAC, our local bus service should be regarded as ‘the fourth emergency service’ since GPs, along with most of the public, have given up any notion of being able to summon an ambulance, even if you have a heart attack. Instead, they are advising people to ‘get on de bus’ if you have chest pain; preferably one that is heading to your local hospital. For all sorts of reasons this is a bad idea. With cutbacks in bus services you are likely to be a frozen corpse by the time a bus arrives. If you do survive to hail a passing bus, you will almost certainly have a Sean Connery when you see the price of a ticket.

They say laughter is the best medicine. Soon it may be the only medicine.

Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He is a columnist with Unity News Network and writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.