Here is a really funny sketch from Armstrong and Millar. Anyone who has spent hours on flights for their business or employer will relate to this little sketch. A nice dig at high powered business folk who spend their work hours presenting other colleague's work.

Last week I posted a recurring sketch by Harry Enfield and Chums about a gormless upper class English character called Tim Nice-But-Dim. Yet parodying the upper class in Britain has always been part of British comedy and this next clip is a classic example taken from the comedy group Monty Python. Monty Python is a bit of an acquired taste and I can imagine that some will not enjoy this sketch although I think it gets better as the skit progresses.

I grew up in Australia and when I first moved to the UK just shy of 30 years ago I used to think that the Australian view of the British being in the grips of a class system was over-stated. Sadly however, I have come to realise the sad truth that the British class system, while being completely anachronistic for the 21^st century, is still very much alive and well. The most disturbing modern incarnation of it at present is the current Tory party under Alexander Boris Pfeffel Johnson who single-handedly has brought into sharp focus all that is wrong with a system that allows some of the most intellectually and, more importantly, morally challenged individuals into the heart of government where their actions make the majority of folk poorer and where horrendous policies are enacted to appeal to the darker demons of our nature including xenophobia and racism.

One Youtube comment under this clip which brought a wry smile to my face was the following It's interesting how as time passed, this marvellous sport has developed into something that the entire world gets pure entertainment value from and has been renamed to 'British Government'.

So last week I shared a comedy video which was a parody of de Feffel's resignation speech. This week we of course now must be subject to the spectacle of those who supported Johnson's car crash vying to replace him. Given that Johnson created a strong evolutionary selection pressure to reward those who were least likely to present any threat to his leadership into cabinet positions, the choice the country has, in relation to the field of possible Tory replacements, is (as the LBC radio presenter James O'Brien stated) a bit like trying to chose a portaloo toilet at the Glastonbury festival.

Thankfully, probably the worst three in Johnson's cabinet of infamy had enough sense not to run and this of course included Nadine Dorries the minister for culture. Sadly over her tenure, Nadine has sadly demonstrated why she would never, in a million years, get a cabinet position under any other Prime Minister who had even a modicum of public duty in his body. Yet for comical effect, the comedian Sooz Kemper imagines what it would be like if Nadine had decided to run to replace Johnson as PM and what her campaign launch speech might have looked and sounded like. Enjoy.

So what I find interesting in these bleak UK political times is how it is spawning new comedy from hitherto completely unknown people (this lady at the time of writing this post has only 393 subscribers). This gem popped up on my Youtube feed on the 13^th of August so I thought I might as well include it in this week's comedy sketch release.

This lady does a great Liz Truss impersonation yet the tragedy is that it is so close to the real thing that one is left feeling both depressed and entertained at the same time. Entertained by the clever parody, yet depressed at the the thought that our next Prime Minister will be indistinguishable from this parody character. Not something you really want to think about when we are facing a cost of living crisis with UK energy bills tipped to hit over £4K per year next year, a war in Eastern Europe, collapsing NHS, global heating-driven European heatwave etc, etc.

Ok so we are now entering yet another period of complete chaos in the UK government as Truss was forced to sack her chancellor after Kwarteng released a non-costed mini budget that crashed the pound and the UK economy. Thankfully, the comedians have been at work trying to soften the pain for the long-suffering average Brit who have witnessed the health service collapse and their standard of livings fall as the government continues to pursue policies that only help the very wealthiest in society.

Yet it has also been a very busy week in UK politics. On the 19^th of October Suella Braverman resigned as home secretary because she broke the ministerial code. Two days after that, on the 21^st, Liz Truss was also forced to resign after her whole premiership was in tatters, there was bullying in the Commons as MPs were forced through the "yes" corridor in the voting chamber of the House of Commons on a crucial fracking vote, and Labour gained a 30 point lead over the Conservative party. In short, the whole country is in a right state because of a group of far right greedy, narcissistic, unintelligent, misanthropic, Dunning-Kruger-type individuals who care about as much for the common folk of the UK as I do for a garden slug. Sad and very difficult times indeed for the UK.

So it has been a tumultuous week in British politics which has resulted in comedy sketches being released left, right and centre as the politician make a fool of themselves giving the comedians plenty of material that is often a little hard to parody. Nerine Skinner has been parodying Liz Truss now for some months so of course she was always going to release a spoof of Liz's final speech as PM which of course was full of all the grace and humility you might expect from such a high calibre leader.

In the spirit of Private Eye's "Separated from birth" section below I have placed Liz's final speech under Liv's final speech. You the reader will have to work out which is which.

Liz Truss Leaving Speech 25^th of October 2022

Liv Struss Leaving Speech 25^th of October 2022

On the day I wrote this post, the UK was in utter political chaos. It is heart breaking the damage the current Conservative government has done to Britain through their corruption, incompetence and greed. Brexit has been the disaster that was predicted yet as with all major mistakes made by those in power, the most affected by their errors are the poor.

Sadly, however this has always been the reality of situation, and the 2007 banking crisis was another great demonstration of how those who cause the most damage to our society, face zero negative consequences while nonetheless being highly rewarded for their mistakes. In many ways, I think this is one of the biggest problems with modern Capitalism. It prides itself on the idea that the free market will be a good arbiter of judging success and failure yet in reality, we often find that those who do offer the most benefit to society are not rewarded even with a liveable wage while those who cause the most damage (and this includes CEOs who destroy individual companies) are almost never held to account. Sadly, those who try to raise this objection are often dismissed as simply being too left-wing when in fact this critique has no bearing on one's view of how socialistic a society should be.

Returning to the comedy at hand, Bird and Fortune were too rather elderly Gentleman who produced a cracking series in the naughties critiquing the obvious political shenanigans that plagued the globe around the time of the financial crisis of 2007/8 and the war on terrorism that preceded it. Sadly John Fortune passed away on New Year's eve of 2013 aged 74 while John Bird passed away only recently on Christmas Eve of 2022 aged 86. RIP John F & John B.