Mitch Benn’s Diary: Stop reading this and go and eat some fish for Britain

So at last we know whose fault the spectacular and ongoing implosion of Brexit is. And it’s a bit of a jaw-dropper. 

So who is to blame? The prime minister? The previous prime minister(s)? Nigel Farage? David Davis? Sarge? Rosemary the telephone operator? 

Nope – turns out it’s YOUR fault. For not eating enough British fish. 

That’s right; it’s all down to YOU and your failure to consume your weight in North Sea langoustines each year, you Remoaning ichthyophobic plate-traitors.

And of course, the fact that the government is only coming out with its exhortations for people to eat British-caught fish now, as we enter Brexit month three, in no way implies that the collapse of the fishing industry has completely blindsided them and they’re reduced to improvising more frantically than Robin Williams in the coke years.

They’ve got everything under control and now it’s up to YOU. Eat fish. Eat fish NOW. Put this newspaper down and GO AND EAT FISH.

BIZARRE RESPONSE TO CORRUPTION OF THE WEEK

The French this week found their former president Nicolas Sarkozy guilty of influence-peddling and sentenced him to three years’ imprisonment.

No, no, no, that’s not how we do it any more, you misty-eyed Gallic idealists. Never mind sending him down for three years, what were you even thinking, putting him on trial in the first place? You might promote him, perhaps bung him some sweet contracts, maybe even give him a radio phone-in show. That’s how it’s done in 2021.

Mind you, Sarko didn’t do himself any favours allowing himself to be snared by a phone-tapping sting. Don’t do your corruption in secret, Nic, it just looks… bad. These days you’re supposed to commit acts of cronyism out in the open, preferably on live TV. Keep it all above board.

PERSON WHO DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO QUIT WHILE HE’S AHEAD OF THE WEEK

Nicolas Sarkozy, who has announced his intention to appeal his three-year sentence despite the fact that two of those years have been suspended and the judge has told him he can serve the remaining year under home confinement, ie. where we’ve all been for the whole of the last twelve months. TAKE THE DEAL, SARKO.

NAKED LEADERSHIP BID OF THE WEEK

The five-minute video in which a bashful and bejumpered Rishi Sunak tells us he’s just a regular guy trying to do his best for the country in these difficult times.

It was released this week apropos of nothing in particular, but watermarked HM Treasury, so I guess we may as well watch it because we’re paying for it.

TORY POLITICIAN TRYING TO LOOK LIKE A NORMAL PERSON BUT SUCCEEDING ONLY IN MAKING HIMSELF LOOK EVEN MORE DETACHED AND REMOTE OF THE WEEK

See above. 

SUBLIMINAL MESSAGE OF THE WEEK

At the annual American right-wing groupthink fest CPAC (Cranks, Paranoiacs And Crooks), delegates, including Failed, Rejected, Definitely No Longer President Trump, addressed the throng of attendees while standing on a stage that onlookers said look remarkably like an ‘Odal Rune’, a swastika variant used as a regimental insignia by the SS and adopted by many neo-Nazi groups over the years.

ARE YOU EATING FISH YET?

Well, are you? 

POEM OF THE WEEK

Of all the slips in government, that make you curse and sigh,
Those unforeseen developments that send your plans awry
And make a nonsense of the ends to which you worked and strove
There’s nothing quite so dangerous as a wounded Michael Gove.

He’s slippery and treacherous while in cabinet, it’s true
And now that he’s outside the tent you know just what he’ll do
The worst backbench rebellion, when they cross the floor in droves 
Can’t do half as much damage as a wounded Michael Gove.

To stab one leader in the back might be the cut and thrust
Of politics as usual, but it’s easy to mistrust
A man who stabs a second, but by golly and by Jove
That’s the least you can expect from a wounded Michael Gove.

In the Commons and CCHQ the atmosphere is grim 
For no-one in the corridors would turn their backs on him
Who knows what webs of intrigue the man already wove?
They’re fleeing from the vengeance of the wounded Michael Gove.

Rouse Boris from his slumbers and bid him now to rise
And drag himself out of whoever’s bed in which he lies
Find Michael a new job at once or else it will be “Sauve…
… qui peut” quand il est de retour; the wounded Michael Gove.

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