“Don’t you know there’s a war on?” bellows the front page of the Daily Excess in response to the publication of Sue Gray’s report into a string of lockdown-busting parties held at Ten Downing Street, several attended by the Prime Minister. The newspaper has long insisted that Gray’s enquiry and continued media reporting of the whole issue has been, at best, a dangerous distraction from the UK’s vital wartime role of cheering on Ukraine from the sidelines, at worst, a treasonous attempt by fifth columnists to undermine the Prime Minister’s war efforts. Indeed, the newspaper’s latest edition even accuses Gray herself of being a ‘crypto-communist Moscow stooge’ attempting to ferment a ‘globalist coup’ in the UK by unseating Boris Johnson. The newspaper whole-heartedly agrees with Johnson’s own assertion that the fact that the report condemns his lack of leadership and allegedly includes pictures of him drunkenly urinating from a first floor window of Number Ten during one of the lockdown parties, there is no reason for him to resign. Its latest editorial even praises him for his ‘statesman-like’ performance in the Commons, where he apologised for breaches of lockdown regulations that might have occurred by raising his left leg and letting rip a huge fart. Praise echoed by many back bench Tory MPs. “It was an absolute corker – I thought he was going to shit himself,” chortles Mark Porker. “It would have served those traitors on the opposition benches right if they’d been showered with shit. I mean, don’t they know there’s a war on? They’re lucky the government didn’t slap a D-notice on the whole business on the grounds of national security, denying them the chance to try and bring down Boris!”
Critics of the government, however, believe that the constant attempts to divert attention from the Prime Minister’s self-made problems by trying to convince the public that he is a wartime leader and that the UK is somehow at war are running out of steam. “All this harping on about how there’s a war on, so we shouldn’t be trying to remove a corrupt, incompetent and venal leader. Let alone criticise him, is utterly ridiculous,” opines Professor Milton Spong, Chair of Political Studies at the Bracknell Textiles School for Young Ladies. “For one thing, the UK isn’t at war. Ukraine is at war with Russia and we’re shouting encouragement from the touchline – it isn’t the same thing at all. Nobody is dropping bombs on London and Russian tanks aren’t causing tail backs on the M3. For another, if we were at war, wouldn’t that be the best reason in the world to get rid of an incompetent and self-serving Prime Minister who has taken huge financial donations from the other side?” Spong suspects that the talk of war, in addition to be a distraction from the cost of living crisis, the failure of Brexit, ‘Partygate’ and too many other problems to list, is a prelude to imposing further restrictions upon civil liberties. “It’s always the same: wartime means restrictions on political campaigning, press censorship and unbridled pro-government propaganda,” says the academic. “All in the name of freedom, of course.”
Tory MPs have been quick to defend their continued use of war related imagery and nomenclature. “Look, we might not actually be at war, but we’re damned close to it,” claims Mark Porker, who recently celebrated a milestone after going ninety days without being accused of rape or serious sexual assault. “The balloon could go up at any moment – all it will take is for Russia to invade Belgium, or even one of its trawlers to encroach into our territorial waters and start stealing British fish, for things to spiral out of control!” Even if the Prime Minister were to be toppled by scandal, Porker believes that his party should remain in control of the government. “It would only be sensible, in the event of war, to form a Tory-led coalition war cabinet,” he says. “When I say ‘coalition’, I obviously don’t mean that it should include any of those opposition bastards – a ‘coalition’ of different Tories, clearly.” Porker has also defended Foreign Secretary Liz Truss’ much derided set of UK ‘war aims’ for the war in Ukraine. “Just because we aren’t directly participating in a war doesn’t mean that we can’t have some say on what the side we’re supporting should do,” he contends. “I mean, if Ukraine doesn’t like our aim for them to give Russia a jolly good spanking, then they can just gives us back all those missiles we’ve let them have! There are plenty of other wars out there that would be happy to have them.”
Certainly, the government itself seems in no hurry to relinquish its wartime rhetoric, with rumours rife that Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s much vaunted cost of living relief package will include such measures as fuel and food rationing to combate shortages being caused by ‘the war’. “Well, it is only reasonable, if there is a war on, that we should ration essentials in order to ensure that they are fairly distributed,” says Porker, in praise of rumours of the issuing of ration books for food and fuel. “I mean, people are complaining that they can’t afford to eat, so this way we’ll help them out by forcing to budget for food economically – not to mention making it go further through ingenious wartime recipes like baked rat pie and goat shit rissoles.” Blackouts could also be imposed in order to conserve energy and confuse enemy bombers. Critics have pointed out, though, that many ‘wartime’ measures have already crept into British politics. “Have you noticed how those sandbags have now appeared outside the door of Number Ten, not to mention the X shaped tape on the windows and the fact that the policeman outside has taken to wearing a tin hat and gas mask case?” Professor Spong points out. “Plus, there have been many reports that during the recent council elections, Boris Johnson reportedly campaigned wearing a tin hat and was seen striding around several run down inner city estates while puffing on a large cigar and sporting a homburg, as if he were Churchill inspecting wartime bomb sites.”
The local elections seemed to be a turning point, with the Tories upping the wartime rhetoric on the campaign trail. “When I raised the appalling condition of some of the social housing around here, the local Tory candidate blamed it on the bombing,” recalls Millwall resident Tommy Fork. “No bloody bombs have fallen around here since 1942!” Likewise, when Fork raised the issue of waiting times for treatment at local hospitals, he was told that this was due to the NHS being overwhelmed with war casualties. “I kept asking, ‘what bloody war’,” he says. “But the bastards just replied ‘Loose lips sink ships’. The twats.” Spong believes that the inevitable next stage will be the rounding up of the government’s critics on charges of ‘sedition’ or even ‘treason’. “Believe me, it is only a matter of time before the secret trials and firing squads.” he muses. “After all, don’t you know there’s a war on?”
