HAMISH Morrison is away this week participating in CarrionCamp, a new AI-powered virtual reality experience which allows you to experience what it would be like to be trapped in a gibbet and picked apart by buzzards.*
Instead, we have a guest column from the politician everyone’s been talking about for the last 30 years: Tony Blair.
Fresh from his latest and increasingly frequent “rare intervention” , the former PM sets out some of the same ideas he’s been droning on about for years – and surprises us with the stance he thinks Britain should take towards America. Over to you Tony…
OK, so first off. Let’s get serious. We need to get seriously serious about being serious about the serious problems the world is facing at the moment. Seriously. Now is not the time for vague platitudes and vibes: That was 1997, 2001 and 2005 and a bit in 2024.
Firstly: We’ve got to get serious about AI. There will be a time when you can’t even open your fridge without describing what you want to ChatGPT. Britain needs to be ahead of the curve. That’s why Keir Starmer should immediately commit to installing an AI-powered fridge freezer in every home in Britain by 2031. Luckily for him, I know a lot of people in the AI-powered fridge sector, so I’m sure that finding a partner won’t be too difficult. Obviously the shareholders need to be compensated for the next 300 years, so to fund this, we must cut £600 billion from the welfare budget every month.
The next thing Starmer must commit to is to stop sending children to school. I know when I was prime minister I made a target of getting half of young people to university, but people seem less keen on that now. Children won’t need to know things in about five years’ time: ChatGPT can do it all for them. They will surely find gainful employment in Britain’s nascent world-class AI-powered fridge freezer manufacturing sector, which will take care of the whole NEET thing.
In a changing world, Britain maintain its status as a member of the Premier League of nations. To this end, I think it is time we finally took the plunge: It’s time to become the 51st state of America. As an indication of just how serious we are about this and as a gesture of contrition to the US for not joining in the initial bombing of Iran, we should immediately annex Greenland and launch a wave of airstrikes against France. This can be funded by following the recommendations of the Blair Review, which my think tank published just last month, which recommends that public sector pay be reduced to zero.
But this can’t just be a debate about policy, however good my proposals are. Politics is about ideas, it’s about storytelling. Starmer can get the jump on this by abolishing storytelling in any form and, through a major expansion of the powers set out in the Terrorism Act which I brought in, ban any ideas that are contrary to those approved by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Domination, I mean Change.
Oh, and last but not least, ID cards. Everyone needs ‘em. Ideally we will be able to create a Britain where no one leaves the house without their digital ID (because doing so would be made illegal). Don’t ask me why we need them, we just do.
Miss me yet?
*We may have made this up.
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