By Citizen Cuddis
One of the keystones of statistical science lies in ruins this morning. Boffins have always said that in an infinite universe, all events, however improbable, must happen.
The theory predicts that if you gave an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters they would eventually work out what Jim Murphy is havering on about. Professor Klaus Vier at the Office for National Statistics conducted an experiment to test the theory. He had this to say earlier:
“I was gob-smacked when the results came through. Not one single primate from the apes and gibbons to the Semi-Tufted Puerto Rican Canopy Hoppers could make head nor tail of the Smorgasbord of North British Labour policies we threw at them.
“Of course we used a supercomputer to simulate the outcome. We did try real monkeys but there was shite everywhere and the cleaner quit.”
In the initial panic that the infinite monkey theory had indeed gone teats up, the Professor considered checking whether water in the campus pond was now running uphill but Jim was walking on it at the time.
“It was a sphincter-clenching moment. Blue flames arced out the hard drive from the get go. But when we fed in the Trident replacement data alongside the child poverty figures and the number of Scots earning less than the minimum wage, the monkeys went totally bananas. We had to shut the system down and crank up the cooling fans. I remember thinking it’s ‘goodnight Gracie’ for modern science.”
Perhaps. But what does all this monkey business mean to Mondeo man or his gender equivalent, Volkswagon Vera; to Chipshop Charlie or to whoever your average voter is nicknamed nowadays? Well, basically, to paraphrase Rhett Butler, ‘Quite frankly my dear, they don’t give a fuck’.
To Vera and Charlie, politics is just street theatre. It consists of a peripatetic Ichabod Crane lookalike balancing on Irn Bru crates outside Aldi, roaring “I will not be shouted down by cyber scum the likes of you!” at small groups of bewildered pensioners. Vera and Charlie have tuned out.
Is this wise however? Readers who exercised a curriculum choice in third year to spend more time round the back of the science huts chain-smoking Embassy Regal than in the science huts doing science may struggle to understand what the smart arses already know: that quantum particles can appear in two places at the same time, though light years apart.
Professor Vier explained, “Quantum events happen on a stupefyingly small scale; down there in Titchy City, being two places at the same time is commonplace.”
Maybe so, yet it has long been considered impossible for anything like this to happen at a macrocosmic level—the real world in which narcissistic, expense-fiddling, mendacious, sociopathic, house-flipping, duck-house buying, moleskin-trouser-wearing toffs ride the Westminster gravy train’s first-class dining carriage all the way to the terminus on the electorate’s dime—but that was before Jim Murphy announced he is to flip Einstein the bird by shortly appearing in not two, but three places at the same time.”
Spud intends to materialise simultaneously in East Renfrewshire as a prospective constituency MP, in London as a Westminster MP and at Holyrood as an MSP, the Leader of Labour in Scotland and First Minister. “I intend to be king of the midden everywhere,”Spud says, “and since the House has now ruled that there’s no shame in having more than one job, I am delighted to announce that I have also signed to play football next season for Clachnacudden.
“The manager has promised me a roving midfield commission. I will play on the right while pretending to play on the left. This should not be a problem; I am an experienced tanner ba’ player both on the pitch and in politics.”
This simply has to be a wake-up call for Chipshop Charlie. If Murphy’s powers now extend to the manipulation of time and space as well as the Scottish media, then Chuck had better start wising the fuck up. There are times when theoretical monkeys matter. That time is now.
BBC Scotland, Murphy’s representatives on Earth, fail to see any division of loyalties here. A spokesperson for the carefully balanced broadcaster said, “If Jim applies for everything going he’s bound to strike lucky sometime. Lots of people manage to be in three places at the same time. Time Lords for instance. Anyway, we’re for Murphy, so piss off and play in somebody else’s close.”
As well as the physical difficulties involved in being all things to all men, everywhere, at the same time there’s the mental strain of concealing the fact that the snake-oil policies Jim punts to Scottish voters as essentially Scottish are actually Westminster Labour policies dressed up in See-You-Jimmy wigs. Isn’t that a problem?
“No,” respond the BBC. “So long as Jim tells his constituents each morning which point of the political compass he intends lurching toward next, we don’t see a problem. Of course, his constituents will have to drop their service expectations. Lower possibly than the bar in an Olympic limbo dancing final, but that’s politics; well, Jim Murphy’s politics anyway.”
So, where does the failure of the Infinite Monkey Theory leave political science?
Professor Vier, who is also a graduate of the Jim Murphy School of Over-Extended Metaphors, is unequivocal: “Two of the three legs on the milking stool of our political understanding have simply buckled under the sheer weight of Labour Party hypocrisy and the milkmaid has gone arse over ninepence into the butter churns.
“It is quite possible,” the Professor adds, “that Jim Murphy – like an Enya album, Bobby Charlton’s comb-over or the still-inexplicable success of Mike and Bernie Winters – will always lie beyond human understanding. Science is in its infancy remember; for example, we still have no idea where the hole in a Cheerio goes once you’ve eaten the outside.”
The professor cautions: “Just thinking about Jim Murphy’s policies can make some voters feel as if their brains have been whizzed round the Heedrum-a-Hodrum collider at near light speed and smashed into a quark. To these people I say, Stick to Sudoku, it’s less taxing.”
In the interests of balanced reporting, for which the BBC is world renowned, and in the sense-mangling editorial style of the Daily Record, we will let Spud have the last word:
“I want to go further than Smith. I want to see the powers—whatever they are, wherever they may be currently hiding, whoever made them up but isn’t saying—devolved to Edinburgh then devolved further to our cities, towns, community centres and outside toilets, right down to the but and ben where the Broons take their summer breaks.
“In this way, real Scottish people like the Broons can develop local programmes to meet local needs such as the proposed Auchenshoogle by-pass.”
Ed: No monkeys were hurt in the making of this article.
