The case of a couple of Dicks and the Tory Christmas party

COPPER OF THE (NEXT?) WEEK

Metropolitan Police commissioner Dame Cressida Dick has been much in the news of late, so I’ve been reading up a bit about her background. Something I’ve been unable to ascertain is whether Dame Cressida is any relation to her namesake, the late author Philip K. Dick (1928-1982), creator of mind-bending science fiction novels and novellas.

Many of Dick’s stories have been (rather loosely) adapted as films; Blade Runner and Total Recall were both based on his work, as was Steven Spielberg’s 2002 Tom Cruise vehicle Minority Report.

It’s this last story, in which an unerring future-predicting system enables cops to arrest criminals BEFORE they commit an offence, that has led me to wonder whether there’s any connection between the two Dicks because Dame Cressida seems to think she’s living in it.

The Metropolitan Police have (at time of writing) said they have no intention of looking into the apparent flagrant breach of Covid protocols incurred by last year’s Downing Street Christmas party because it’s not their policy to “retrospectively” investigate crimes.

This policy, if held to consistently, should lead to some fairly relaxing times for the Met, given that heretofore and outwith science fiction, there’s been no other way TO investigate crimes.

Similarly, it sounds like it’s going to be a fun time to be a criminal since, according to the Met, if you’ve already COMMITTED your crime, there’s nothing they can do about it and you’re home free.

So the next time a policeman pulls you over and tells you that you were speeding, just smile and say: “Well yes, but I’m not any more, am I?” Or if the HMRC come after you for an unpaid tax bill, simply reply, “That’s all in the past now and it’s time to move on.”

OUTCAST OF THE WEEK

Poor old Andrew Neil… only a few months ago, he liberated himself from the stifling orthodoxy of the BBC in order to briefly become bigwig (stop it) of GB News, only to find himself comprehensively outgammoned and dethroned in a matter of weeks. Now he finds himself a pariah figure in the selfsame libertarian caucus he once courted, for the twin heresies of not only proudly announcing himself doubled vaxxed ‘n’ boosted (boo!) but also (shudder) being in favour of vaccine passports… (JUUUUDAAAAS).

The trouble is, as Mr Neil is learning all too late, the conspiracy theorist genie can’t be stuffed back into the confirmation bias bottle once it’s uncorked. Case in point: the it’s-all-the-Illuminati dingbat wing of the anti-vaxxer movement (does it have another wing?) is currently working itself into a collective lather, having noticed that “Omicron Delta is an anagram of “media control”.

Presumably, therefore, their new theory is that Bill Gates managed to go back in time about 2,500 years in order to influence the spellings of the Roman names for the characters of the Greek alphabet.

Hey… maybe he’s been lending Cressida Dick his time machine so that she can enact the Met’s new policy of only investigating crimes that haven’t happened yet! IT’S ALL STARTING TO MAKE SENSE…

PARTY-POOPER OF THE WEEK

The Met’s new time-travel capabilities could be about to be put to the test, as speaker of the Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle has called in the fuzz to investigate apparent rampant cocaine abuse in the House. Apparently, 12 Commons lavatories were tested for traces of the Old Colombian Go-Faster Powder and 11 produced positive results (bet it was the Lib Dems’ toilet that was negative, the squares).

I find this all rather difficult to believe, as a jobbing comedian of 25 years’ standing, I’ve been trapped in many dressing rooms with many, many ranting coked-up comics over the years, so I know the signs only too well… the rambling, rapid-fire, semi-coherent speech patterns, the wide-eyed dishevelled appearance, the overwhelming confidence and sense of superiority. Surely we’d know if anyone in the Commons was doing cocaine, wouldn’t we?

But in any event, now’s your chance, Dame Cressida: tell the lads to fire up the DeLoreans. If you can’t nick anyone for breaching Covid regulations last year, maybe you could bust a few MPs for all the drugs they’re going to take next week.

(Unless of course this whole “no past crimes” thing is BS and you just regard your job as protecting the government rather than enforcing the law, and nobody wants to believe that’s true…)

POEM OF THE WEEK

Last Christmas
We partied all night
While the plebs in their homes
Were stuck all alone
This year
We’ve brought loads of gear
And we’re snorting it in the toilets.
Last Christmas
We had a great time
While the voters, the fools
Obeyed all the rules
This year
We’re getting the fear
The Speaker has called the rozzers.