The most brazen lie from the No camp isn’t Tesco raising their prices, mortgages going up, or even that you won’t get a heart transplant in an independent Scotland (they really said that!). No, it’s none of those. The biggest lie of the No campaign is that voting no is a vote for competence and certainty.
Throughout the referendum campaign, I’ve been developing a healthy hatred for the phrase “You couldn’t make it up”. It’s pish, overused and deeply annoying. It generally means something is so ridiculous or outrageous that even writers of fiction wouldn’t have dreamt it up. I think this does a disservice to our fine tradition of satirists, playwrights and screenwriters. I’m sure they could dream of the ridiculous farce that has been unfolding this week, they’d just dismiss it as utterly unbelievable and write something about David Cameron riding to Scotland on a golden Unicorn instead.
You see the politicians in Westminster are meant to be our top team. We are told they represent the professional class of politician, the experts in policy and legislation drawn from across the whole of the UK – only this week they are beginning to look a bunch of 1st Year politics students, who’ve stumbled into office on the back of a two week pub crawl in freshers week and a determination to wing it until they get found out. Never in my life have I seen such a focussed series of utterly farcical attempts to convey a political message as I have borne witness to this week. It’s been pretty amazing.
Let’s do the greatest hits of utter ineptitude shall we? Cue the Top of the Pops music…
5. George Osbourne breaks purdah… then doesn’t.
Apparently he was making an announcement about a timetable, not new powers. Even though he said new powers. But it’s ok because he wasn’t speaking for the Government. Although he is Chancellor of the Exchequer. Right? Good.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-29100372
4. David Cameron pretends to swear – criiiiiiiiinge!
3. William Hague admits that giving the Scottish Parliament new powers is not Government policy
2. John Prescott takes a jaunt up to Scotland and tells us we should merge our national football teams
1. Trying to put up a Saltire above 10 Downing Street, and failing…
Now, I’m not one to bandy about strong terms like clusterfuck willynilly, but this is a clusterfuck. This is the tip of the clusterfuck iceberg. These people are meant to be leaders? I’ve not even mentioned that they thought sending 3 of the poshest men in Parliament to Scotland would persuade us to change our minds, or that David Cameron did so without deigning to glory the people with his actual presence and instead spoke to an invited audience of backslappers in a large financial institution. Or the headlines that said Will’s and Kate’s new baby was coming to save the union!
So, vote No for utter farce. Vote No to continue being ruled by an unrepresentative parliament (only 22% are women) full of the elite political class, 33% of whom went to public school. If the No camp win on the 18th it’ll be a vote for buffoonery and farce, and satire will truly be dead.
Sorry about the swearing, I’m sure Tucker would approve.
David Officer
@Davidofficer
National Collective
