So where should we start in this pantomime of shadows? It was a dark and stormy evening when the conspirators hatched their plot. OK that's a lie. It was a Wednesday afternoon and the weather was warm with a touch of cloud. The conspiracy in question was a strange double cross to deny the government of the day it's prize candidate for Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee. In the backrooms of the corridors of power.... OK no that's a lie too. In the zoom breakout groups of power... Labour and the SNP hatched a sneaky scheme. Worried as they were, that if Failing Chris Grayling took the Chairmanship their committee would be neither intelligent nor secure, they set about nominating a Tory challenger.
Julian Lewis was the man. Having sat on the committee before and previously chaired the influential Defence Committee he looked like a competent choice. Surprisingly the fact that he is the only MP who doesn't use email was not grounds to bar him from selection. With one vote in it to decide whether the Government got their Grayling, Mr Julian Lewis was the decider aaaannnddd voted for himself. So Number 10's strategy of 'nominate Grayling' ended in a failing. Shock. The government is not supposed to nominate anyone for the job as it's chosen by parliament... so to prove this they kicked Julian out of the Tory party. Not only have they not got their man, they've pissed off the candidate who replaced him. I am sure he won't hold it against them next time he is scrutinising their policies.
With the Committee now chaired it could finally release the 'Russia report' into Russian influence in UK elections and referendums. Of course, no one has actually read the Russia report. But they have read a summary on the BBC, checked Carole Cadwalladr's twitter feed and watched the interview where Steward Hosie becomes an MP we've now heard of.
The report found that Russian influence in the UK is the new normal. Successive Governments have welcomed the oligarchs and their money with open arms, providing them with a means of recycling illicit finance through the London ‘laundromat’. Presumably we are talking a laundromat that takes currency larger than pound coins..... Sh*t! my laundry!
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Sorry. Where was I? The report also suggests that Russia has sought to influence political processes including the Scottish Independence and EU referendums. It goes on to say that the government has juggled this issue like a 'hot potato' and failed to adequately respond to the threat of interference.
In response to critics calling Boris Johnson stupid for not doing more to counter Russia, the Prime Minister revealed that he had recently taken an intelligence test like his American counterpart. They asked him to remember a series of words: Person. Woman. Man. Party. Donations. Conflict. Interest.
The report though was perhaps not the polonium spiked bombshell some were expecting. This may have been in part because swathes of the report were redacted. It is therefore impossible to know whether allegations that a senior Conservative Minister *** *** and a prominent oligarch *** with a grapefruit, were considered by the report.
We may not know everything contained in the Russia report, but it has shone a light on the meddling interference in our otherwise perfect democracy. Hopefully someone will now do something about it. And we can all drink to that! 'Nostrovia'!
CORVID-19 denies any allegation that this sketch was delayed due to political reasons. All sketches on matters of Russian influence in satire go through a rigorous security vetting and review process before they are published and this inevitably takes a while.
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