The latest reversal is in fracking. The Tories’ 2019 manifesto committed the party to a moratorium on fracking until science showed it could be done without earth tremors. But that was three years ago. Needless to say, the science hasn’t changed at all, but that’s not good enough for our Librium Liz. He believes it should have been done. So he took a look at science and decided that science has got it wrong. What is needed is new science. The one that agrees with her. And guess what? Now he has redefined science and it’s all systems go. The power of magical thinking. It was left to business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg to explain the change of heart in response to an urgent question from shadow climate change secretary Ed Miliband. Mogster was in his element. He is never happier than when he is enjoying his 19th century fantasies. If he could bring back coal mining he would. Anything to escape reality. However, there was a brief pause as Rees-Mogg could not find his script. It wasn’t a surprise as he didn’t seem to have one. All he really had to say was that fracking was back on the agenda whether people liked it or not. Like Librium Liz, it seems to be under the delusion that all you have to do is drill a hole somewhere in an area of outstanding national beauty and have an unlimited supply of natural gas. Enough to drop the price to a matter of pennies and end global dependence on Russian gas. Miliband treated Rees-Mogg as if she were half-breed. Most people do these days. Long gone are the days when MPs were impressed by his faux politeness and smug confidence, wrapped in an oversized undertaker’s suit. Now the world sees him for the destitute fraud that he is. What was he trying to prove, asked Miliband. There was almost no chance of any of this happening. Most Tory councils won’t grant planning permission for a garden shed, let alone a fracking site. And even if they did, it wouldn’t change anything. The price of gas wouldn’t go down and it would just alienate voters everywhere. It was nothing short of an earthquake chart. What happened to the Tories’ commitment to renewable energy? Rhys-Mogg just shrugged. The world was very closed for the earthquakes. What was wrong with a little seismic activity? He never did any harm in San Francisco. Well, except for 1906. We’re all going to have to get used to some shocks. How would we know it wasn’t safe unless some people died? Tory MPs Mark Menzies, Greg Knight, Scott Benton, Ruth Edwards and Paul Maynard were all furious at this occasional manifesto rubbish and sought reassurance that the Government was still keeping its promise that nothing could go ahead without the local consensus. Rees-Mogg did not respond to this. You can never trust the locals to make rational decisions. It would be much better if the drilling companies tried to bribe a select few residents. Give us a break, Rees-Mogg pleaded. “We’ve only been in government for two weeks.” Hey, make it 12 years. Besides, he suggested, most of the anti-fracking protests had been sponsored by Putin. And this is coming from someone who ran a Brexit campaign tainted by Russian influence. At least there was less revisionism in the health secretary’s statement about her plan for the NHS. Mainly because Librium Liz never had a plan for it in the first place. Except to make it a little better than it is now. Anyway. She will be furious when she finds out who dropped it on the ground. But at least she has chosen her new health secretary wisely. Because when you’re out of ideas, who better than Thérèse Coffey? A woman with no imagination and no big brain. But someone who can be counted on to find some nonsense on the back of a cigar packet. Certainly, Coffey did not disappoint, making – in the absence of a plan – a memory game. A was for Ambulance. B was for Backlog. C was for Care. D was for the doctor. And E was for totally fucking Eejit. Poor Therese. She hadn’t realized how vile and misogynistic her ideas were. He didn’t even seem to realize that he had moved the goalposts from people being able to see a GP in 48 hours under Labor to two weeks under Librium Liz. And, he said sternly, people could move to another doctor who also wouldn’t be able to see them if he had no luck with the first one. Otherwise, they could do everyone a favor and die. Did Coffey really think setting more unachievable goals was the answer? Therese looked miserable. Because it turns out that’s exactly what he believed. We are really messed up.
