Further Reading

Hello and welcome to a special mini-edition of the Partly Political Broadcast podcast. I’m Tiernan Douieb and if you’re listening to this in 2016 have a very happy new year, and if you’re listening to this in 2017 OH GOD IT HAPPENED! THEY CAN’T SEE YOU IF YOU DON’T MOVE! GO OUT ONLY DURING DAYLIGHT!

Yes 2016 has drawn to a close. It was the UN designated International Year Of Pulses, ironic as it barely gave us a single grain of hope through it’s 365 days of terror attacks, divisive politics, celebrity deaths and toblerone bars being shit. But there have been enough retrospectives of the year gone by so I thought it’d be better to see what 2017 will bring. 2017 is the UN designated International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development which is odd as it looks like it’ll also be year most countries in the West continue to search for ways to put off visitors. Unless it’s all some ruse to see who can build the biggest terrifying rollercoaster, with one continuously slippery slope all the way down into a large cess pool of fear.

This podcast is on a hiatus till January 24th on account of me finally having a holiday for the first time in ages. So to get you through till then, I’d like to give you a few predictions for politics and politics related things in 2017 and then you can spend the year going ‘oh wow, he was wrong about that as well’ or more likely gather a mob and crowd round my house with pitchforks referring to me as Nostradamwitch as each one rings true like a creepy novelty bell. But first, as always with this time of year, very little has happened over the past week, so here’s a super fast update:

Prime Minister Theresa May has promised Brexit plans will be laid out in the new year. Laid out is of course how many of us start the new year, like the Brexit plans, with a terrible hangover from the events of 2016. May says her proposals will be for a truly global Britain, which is a clever way of saying with a shit pound and possible quelling of free movement, we won’t be able to go outside the country so best make the UK our whole world. Meanwhile Change Britain, a Brexit pressure group named after all the Bank Of England will have left post leaving the EU, have said we should have a clean Brexit. Not sure if that’s the same as a hard or a soft one, but I guess it depends on what shower gel it uses while cleaning. Change Britain say a clean Brexit would save the UK £450m a week based on things they made up in their head and a Christmas wish one of them made. Former Cabinet office chief economist Jonathan Portes said the figure came from adding together supposed savings that are meaningless and can’t be guaranteed so the results are junk. So it looks yet again like we might just be going for a rubbish Brexit after all.

Meanwhile Labour seem to have plans to relaunch Jeremy Corbyn as a leftwing populist which isn’t easy as making left wing ideals into soundbite slogans is hard. ‘Make Britain Nice For Everyone Regardless Of Creed Culture Or Colour With Equal Rights For All While Poverty Is Abolished and We Renationalise The Railways Again!’ How’d you fit that on a baseball cap?

Meanwhile in the US in a big ol’ mic drop before the Obama Administration steps out, America have expelled 35 Russian diplomats and their families over involvement in cyber attacks during the election which has caused Russia to retaliate by saying it was thinking about expelling 35 US diplomats from Russia in a sort of global swapsies game. I reckon this is all a clever move from Obama where the US will then expel say 10 Russian restaurant owners, Russia will send back 10 US ones, then US expel 4 Russian Dwarf Hamsters, Russia will send back 4 Praire Dogs, and eventually the US will send back exiled Oligargh Mikhail Khordorkovsky and Russia fall for it and send Edward Snowden straight back to Obama all wrapped up in a bow. Meanwhile Secretary of State John Kerry spoke out against Israeli settlement building probably realising that finding the best route to a two state solution may also be helpful for America’s future over the next 4 years too.

Meanwhile Donald Trump has promised to shut his controversial Trump Foundation because he’s the only person in the world for whom shutting down a charity is actually a meaningful gesture. Trump says his administration will follow two rules which I assumed would be ‘Donald must never be made wet and Donald must never be fed after midnight.’ Which shows that under his presidency the dollar will be so low, they’ll have to resort in trading in Americans. And it looks like barely any acts or celebrities will be performing at Trump’s inauguration on January 20th, because let’s face it, how on earth do you follow a man who’s entire political career so far has either been a song and dance or a total farce?

Oh and the Syrian Army have agreed a ceasefire with Syrian rebels with Russia and Turkey as guarantors, which is a bit like applying for a mortgage with backing from Loki and Darth Vader. I’m sure it’ll all be fine.

PREDICTIONS

So yeah, it was pretty quiet over Christmas. So to get you through the next few ParPolBro free weeks, here are my expert predictions on things that may happen in 2017:

Article 50 will be triggered in Spring, but upon triggering it, the government will discover that it’s actually a dud and simply contains the word ‘bang’. Remainers will think this assumes we won’t leave the EU after all and be overjoyed, Brexiteers will assume this is a plot by the liberal elite to ruin things and while they have a vicious fight in Trafalgar Square, all of the UK except for Lincolnshire will fall out of the EU by accident because no one was looking. Scotland will then invade Lincolnshire and four people and a dog will die.

Conservatives will redraw the constituency boundaries but due to a lack of creative skill as they mostly thrive on destroying art, many constituencies become larger than they were before, with much of the North Sea and North Atlantic Ocean contained within them. As a result, the Assorted Sea Mammal & Fish Party make headway in several by-elections.
Prime Minister Theresa May attempts to keep pushing to for Britain to leave the European Convention On Human Rights, but is thwarted when a 6 year old boy asks her in front of a camera, ‘but aren’t you a human? Don’t you want rights?’ and she accidentally eats him revealing her giant insect mouth.

Labour make huge headway in opinion polls after Jeremy Corbyn announces he will nationalise the Great British Bake Off, but then suffer a greater fall in popularity than before when he announces that he’s going to fight against capitalising of letters and start incentives equally distribute more money spiders to hard working people.

Jeremy Hunt fires all NHS doctors and nurses and replaces them with big screens showing National Lampoon movies to sick people in the understanding that laughter is the best medicine. Chevy Chase is extremely pleased with the royalty cheques but 422,361 people die within a week.

The government change the meaning of homelessness to only mean Loch Ness monsters without a home, therefore reducing homelessness figures in the UK from quarter of a million to just 3.

After fears Front National would do well in the French election, it is won by Rene Belloc from Indiana Jones and the Raiders Of The Lost Ark in a surprise victory after a Buzzfeed article compared him to Marine Le Pen and everyone realised he had a nicer hat.

Donald Trump lasts exactly two months as US President before a four year old girl tells him he isn’t as cool as an astronaut and in an angry jealous fit, packs in the job to become the best astronaut ever and dies after exhausting the entire International Space Station oxygen supply talking about how great he is at floating around being a tit. Mike Pence takes over as president until he realises that thinking about the power he has keeps giving him erections and he submits himself for conversion therapy.

The EU makes a surprise expansion by accepting Australia and Israel as members after changing it’s application rules to those of Eurovision.

The Syrian ceasefire holds throughout 2017 but only because everyone instead uses pointed sticks to attack each other, as supplied by Russia and the US who build large pointed stick making factories in February. However peace emerges across the Middle East in August when a man in Iraq said quite loudly, ‘why doesn’t everyone just stop it and be friends?’

Turkey entirely disappears for 7.3 seconds on June 14th and no one knows why but a cat in Antalya looks extremely smug all weekend.

Vladimir Putin accidentally stubs his toe on his antique 16th Century Russian Dresser while practicing his street dancing moves, and calls himself a stupid prick out loud. He immediately sentences himself to 3 months in prison for insulting the great leader and in the meantime the country is lead by a grizzly bear called Alexei who does a really great job and can balance a ball on his nose.

Fake news dominates the internet to the extent that real news reports it, causing people to carry it out, and thus it becomes real news and ceases to exist. After people realise they can’t believe anything, everyone makes up their own news for their own homes and whilst most of it is hugely mundane, everyone is much happier for at least 10 minutes.

Oh and Nigel Farage has a vivid dream that everyone else in the world speaks a different language to him and then wakes up having turned into a giant beetle. No one notices.

And that’s all for this year’s Partly Political Broadcast podcast. I’ll be back in your ears on January 24th and by then, most of those predictions will probably have come true, even the ones I predicted will happen later in the year. Don’t forget you can still listen to old episodes, review the show on iTunes – thanks to Shatner’s Basson for our very lovely 52nd review! Please keep spreading the word and if you fancy donating to make this show even better, then head to patreon.com/parpolbro and send me a pound or two. Lastly you can drop me a line @parpolbro on twitter, parpolbro on Facebook and partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com. And I wish you a fantastic 2017 despite how unlikely that may be looking and I leave you with this. Rather than a bleak retrospective of the year gone by, here is one of all the things I’ve called Nigel Farage on this show since February 2016. You’re welcome. GOODBYE!

FARAGE SUPERCUT –

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