Kludgie-gate reveals latest strategy to deliver the very bestest Brexit result for as many of the few as possible (God and the Daily Mail willing), the intrepid Citizen Cuddis reports.
A leaked commentary on a secret Brexit update given by our post-vacation PM to a cabal of sympathetic journalists in the arrival hall at Paisley International Airport was last night slipped under the door of Citizen Cuddis’s outside kludgie. This latest Brexit bombshell uncovers the Tories’ new strategy (their 247th to date) to secure the pocket-lining best of the very bestest Brexit result for as many of the few as possible. It has already been dubbed Kludgie-gate (Yes, but just by you, Cuddis. Ed.)
TOP SECRET
The PM stands on an empty luggage trolley. The trolley is wheeled in front of a small crowd of waiting journos by her husband, the bin man. She begins.
‘I learned during my hols that thanks to the Swiss parliament’s amendment of their federal constitution to enshrine a ‘right to free-range yodelling’, Swiss citizens may now yodel their way from canton to canton without let or hindrance — and without hard borders. Inspired by this brave constitutional change, I headed up Zermatt way for a butcher’s at the Matterhorn and a masterclass in yodelling by way of kicking off a three week yomp-fest during which the bin man and I zig-zagged aimlessly hither and yon over the Swiss alps.’
She fakes a look of humility and says, ‘But, as I know to my personal cost, sometimes we zig when we should have zagged.’ She pauses for an outpouring of sympathy which fails to materialise. ‘I thought the mountain air might clear my head, but it didn’t. I was too concerned about you-know-what.’
‘Do you mean Brexit?’ The question comes from the political correspondent of the Cowcaddens Courier, Mack ‘The Hack’ McGillicuddy.
‘On a point of order, Mr McGillicuddy we don’t use the B-word anymore. You have to say “you-know-what”. In fact our latest vacuous slogan for the new parliamentary session is: ‘You-know-what means you-know-what. Much clearer, don’t you agree? That should boot the EU negotiators’ fitba right up on the slates.’
‘So we can’t even say the word ‘Brexit’ anymore?’ Mack asks.
The PM winces at Mack’s use of the B-Word so soon after her prohibition. ‘No you can’t.’
‘If we can’t talk about you-know-what, per se, can you at least tell us how ‘you-know-what’ is going, then, Mrs May?’ Mack asks.
‘Patience, Mr McGillicuddy. First I’d like to tell you what the wee Scottish nyaff I met on my holiday told me. He said that by 2050, the tories will have disappeared altogether, just like corned beef legs.’
In her ear-piece, one of the PM’s as yet unsacked spin doctors reminds her not to pass up the opportunity for the SNP Bad they’d planned. She nods almost imperceptibly. ‘I have since learned that at one time, corned beef legs were endemic in the Central Belt,’ she says. ‘Glasgow Royal Infirmary had a ward set aside solely for the afflicted. The condition — caused by sitting too close, for too long, to the heating elements of a two-bar electric fire, then a mandatory form of heating from Scrabster to Kelso — turned the skin on the victim’s thighs into a patchwork quilt of mottled blotches beyond the masking properties of three pairs of tights. But, as I explained to the hairy-arsed bauchle, If these so-called sufferers had been out looking for a job instead of hanging around the fireplace reading the Morning Star with their comrades, they’d not have caught it.’
“Nobody speaks out for us three bar heaters! There’s two sides to those corned beef legs you know. And the other side’s pretty damned ugly!”
‘What’s that got to do with Brex—I mean you-know-what?’ Mack pipes up. Hagrid-sized men with shiny, bullet shaped heads whisper up their shirt sleeves and make a beeline for the hapless reporter, with malice aforethought in their eyes and tasers in their jacket pockets, wondering why the journo vetting process for invitees appears to be flawed.
‘The problem of corned beef legs was solved by applying the universal tory concept of poolin’ and sharin’,’ the PM continued. ‘Of course, had Scotland been independent, under the SNP, the cost of electricity would have skyrocketed until only those owning their own hydro-electric dam could afford to switch on a two-bar electric fire for longer than ten minutes. Anyone lacking hydro-power, foolish enough to do so, would have been subjected to the eyeball-shuddering hum that emanates from an overheating leccie meter when they clock up chargeable units faster than Usain Bolt covers track.’
‘Mrs May? Kathryn Clark, Exchange and Mart. I’ll not ask you anything about Brexit with you just in the door so to speak — but could you give us a yodel instead? I loves a good yodel, me. Of a weekend.’ An unseen force contorts the PM chin. For a brief moment she looks like the distinguished meerkat, Alexandr Orlov, having an acid-reflux attack. The PM’s Harley Street physician later diagnoses this convulsion as a smile. ‘Perhaps later,’ she says.
The Hagrid-sized goons ‘escort’ Mack from the venue, expediting the task by using his head as a battering ram to bust open the fire doors leading to the alley. From the back of the hall, a woman’s voice calls out. ‘Mrs May, Quinoa Cavanaugh. New York Times. Once Americans used to ‘do’ Europe. Now Europe is doing Britannia. And what a doing that’s turning out to be. Whaddaya think of them apples?’ It’s a good question, and deserves a far better answer than it gets.
The PM checks her watch. If she can just manage to generate three more minutes of diaphanous fluff straight out of the Westminster Book of Verbal Nincompoopery …
‘Thanks for the question, Quinoa. Before I answer it I’d like to pick up on an earlier request. The PM points at the woman who’d earlier asked her to yodel: Kathryn from the Exchange and Mart. And before you can say ‘you-know-what’, she is yodelling her tonsils off. Right there, then and now Theresa May IS Sourdough Slim as she treats the audience to Sourdough’s homage to Helen Shapiro: ’Yodelling Back to Happiness.’
Stunned silence greets her yodelsome finale. She clears her throat, checks her watch. Again. Christ, still 60 seconds to go! If she has to talk about Brexit she’s dead. ’Though our new strategy precludes mentioning you-know-what directly, I am at liberty to describe to you what you-know-what will look like when we get who-knows-where. It’ll be a bit like Honah Lee—‘
A hand shoots up. ‘Mike Brown, Carnoustie Avalanche. You mean where Puff the Magic Dragon lived?’
‘Lives, Mike, but yes, that’s right,’ the PM corrects.
A second hand is raised. ‘Conrad Theakston, Aberfeldy Gazette. Is it where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies?’
‘Correct.’
‘Grace Chalmers, Belhelvie Boomerang. Is the capital city twinned with Cloud Cuckoo Land?
‘Yes. Now that’s all I’ve got time for. Unless you want me to yodel again.’
Outside in the alley, Mack ‘The Hack’ McGillicuddy is helping the security forces with their enquiries. He is helping them so well that he is blind in one eye and his fingers have been so bent out of shape that he will probably never play the ukulele again.
