Life in The Bunker
(Incorporating extracts from Jeremy Corbyn's Secret Diary - Age 96¾)
Introduction
The 13 sketches were written during the campaign on the UK Referendum on the EU in 2016, roughly at one per week. References to some of the contemporary news stories, such as the ‘Panama Papers’, may appear obscure to some readers today.
The author has, deliberately, as well as sub-consciously, drawn upon a number of influences in writing this satire, not least the Daily Telegraph’s ‘The Way of the World’ columns, ‘Dad’s Army’, and ‘Allo ‘Allo!’ from the old BBC TV series.
In the tradition of satire, the author has attempted to ridicule both sides in this campaign although being fair-minded wasn’t uppermost in his mind.
The author is particularly grateful for the kind remarks and suggestions from Free Speech Backlash commenters. He’s still looking for a cartoonist.
Part 4
As Captain Cameron surveyed the wreckage surrounding the redoubt of the Remainian Guard, he pondered the futility of it all and, not for the first time, he brought to mind the fate of one of his predecessors Major "Johnnie" Major, who'd lost so many troops to gain a pyrrhic victory in the Maastricht campaign - the campaign to end all campaigns, they'd called it. What had he called his foes? "Bastards, bastards!".
The bomb plot, under a flag of truce, carried out by Colonel Iain "Quietly" Duncan Smith of the British Resistance, had wreaked havoc. His troops had been blown to smithereens and the state of the survivors now bent on bloody revenge was pitiful to contemplate.
His trusty Sergeant Osborne was on life support under the care of Matron May. She was wearing some sort of slinky black, bosom-exposing, uniform which hadn't really distracted him, or any of his ADCs. She'd confided to Captain Cameron, with a rather odd happy glint in her eye, that Osborne was unlikely to be fit for duty again. He would certainly be disabled, which was ironic, to say the least, given his long-demonstrated and conspicuous lack of ability.
In the pit of his despair Captain Cameron tried to draw some comfort from an interview which his substantial Remainian chum "Fatty" Soames had broadcast aimed at sapping the will of the British Resistance. He read the text of this and considered how the opposing forces might perceive the words of the great British saviour's grandson - feudal? Arrogant? Autocratic? Anachronistic? Oh hell!
These were the very words they used to describe General Juncker's outfit at Brussels HQ. Contemplating yet another own goal, he stuck a very large pin in his new wax effigy of Captain Boris de Stauffenberg Johnson before picking up the phone to report the latest bad news to the German Chancellor. Maybe she would have some good news for him?
Meanwhile, in a trench, not far from the Remainian HQ, Corporal Corbyn was trying to resolve a personal crisis with little success. He was almost wise enough, and certainly old enough, to realise that he'd managed to get himself in a bit of a pickle. After over 40 years of fighting for the British Resistance against the Remainians, German Chancellors, and the monstrous apparatus of World Capitalism that was Brussels HQ, how, in the name of Castro's beard, had he found himself stuck with Captain Cameron, the infantile and irritating Private Farron wearing his mummy's scarf, and the rest of this gang?
It had been a funny old time following his 96th birthday last September, and he vaguely recalled having been persuaded to have a few drinks. The rest had been a bit of blur, endless meetings, rallies, interviews with awful journalists and a multitude of semi-articulate people praising him as a great new leader. It was like some horrible nightmare, and he desperately wanted to wake up, and find himself back behind the counter of his little shop selling out of date platitudes and revolutionary ephemera from the 1960s which hardly anybody wanted to buy, but which had given him great comfort and peace.
He'd had some pretty nasty things said about him recently, and he didn't like this one bit as it was hurtful and very confusing for a veteran of his age. Old comrades who were now in the British Resistance were calling him a turncoat, revisionist lickspittle of the oppressors of the people. These were his phrases, his all-purpose denunciations of collaborators with the ruling class! How dare they use these trite Trotskyite tirades against him!
He glanced across to the veranda of the Remainian Club and saw four of his oldest enemies who were wearing the same uniform as he was. Privates Mandelson, Heseltine and Hague were sat around a table with the frail Private Clarke, drinking whisky. As he looked closer, he could see that three of them were clearly intoxicated and enjoying a joke. Private Hague had uncoupled a plastic bag of light brown coloured liquid from below the arm of Private Clark's wheelchair and was hooking it up to the drip feed standing next to the wheelchair. Once he'd finished doing this, the three of them collapsed, helpless with drunken laughter. Corporal Corbyn couldn't believe his eyes. He was on the same side as these oafs!
Whatever he'd had to drink at his last birthday had obviously caused him to hallucinate, and part of his mind wondered how long it would take for the effects to wear off.
It was a very, very confused and unhappy Corporal Corbyn who trudged off to find a trusted friend who could help him understand the frightful mess he was in. He spotted his old chum Private Galloway wearing, not a uniform, but some sort of shiny body stocking, complete with pointy ears and a tail. Maybe George could help him make some sense of this delusional hell he was in?