The Frank Report LII

Welcome to what is regrettably the final instalment of The Frank Report. Having run for the promised year, I’m afraid it’s time to bow out gracefully. As rewarding as satire may be, it still fails to match the promise of a few nicker; or even better, fewer knickers. There is a remote chance that the column will be resurrected in future, but assuming it lies dormant, being your correspondent of choice has been an honour and a pleasure. Having got the bad news out of the way, let’s get to the good stuff.

It’s been a reassuringly busy week at Westminster, as our nominally ‘Conservative’ government devise evermore elaborate schemes to screw us - assuming they have any energy left after screwing each other. Yes, freedom of Information enquiries have exposed House of Commons toilet doors adorned with ‘sexually explicit graffiti’, as well as the name ‘Dave’ carved into stonework in the Peer’s Corridor. I guess old Etonian habits die hard, but at least there weren’t any pigs’ heads in the vicinity.

Keen to get us all back to graffitiing or doodling at our desks is Prime Minister Rishi, who turned his attention this week to Britain’s failing education system. ‘All UK students will study maths till they’re 18’ he promises, although I’m not sure he has quite thought this through. For starters, most council estate oiks leave school at 16, and as far as I’m aware not one of them has managed to run up a credit card bill of  £2Trillion with the taxpayer as guarantor.

In the unlikely event that Sunak manages to follow through on his pledge, there are fears that compulsory A-level maths would need to be dumbed down even further. Here, for instance, is a sample question from one of the more reputable examination boards:

If Rishi presides over 100% debt-to-GDP, the highest tax take since WWII, and inflation at a 40-year high, but his wife happens to be a billionaire - what percentage of a shit does he not give? Please show your working.

Education is just one of the PM’s primary concerns however, as he set out his five-point plan for the country in the first major speech of 2023. Sunak’s pledges are to halve inflation, grow the economy, reduce national debt, reduce NHS waiting lists, and stop the boats. Cutting through the bluster, Sunak is promising to reverse the effects of the pointless Covid lockdown, and the reckless half a trillion pound borrowing it necessitated - in other words, he wants to de-Rishify the country. No need Prime Minister, the ballot box will deliver that gratis whenever you’re ready.

The final point however is a nice touch. For the past five years, the public has been treated to a never-ending stream of Home Secretaries and Prime Ministers promising to ‘get tough’ on illegal immigration. The idea that ‘new laws’ are now required to enforce our perfectly adequate existing laws, is the icing on the cake. This government has not the slightest intention of stopping the Channel crossings, as last year’s trawl of 45,000 doctors and engineers will testify. You’ve got to give it to the Tories though - whatever else they can’t do, they’ve got piss-taking down to a fine art.

2022’s piss-takers of choice, Hazza and Nutmeg, have also been making hay while The Sun shines (not to mention every other tabloid they can leak their dirty laundry to). Excerpts from Prince Harry’s memoirs ‘Spare Prick’ were evidently bled to that famously pro-monarchy rag, The Guardian, and include revelations that Harry took cocaine to ‘alter the pre-established order’; wore the 2005 Nazi uniform because of Will and Kate; lost his virginity to an ‘older woman’ who ‘loved horses very much’, and killed 25 people in Afghanistan. All of which sounds like a quiet night behind the bike sheds at most of England’s finest public schools (trust me, I was there).

The best bit for me was the whine about Prince William giving him a slap and calling Meghan ‘abrasive’, ‘rude’ and ‘difficult’, which in fairness are probably the nicest things you can say about the woman. According to Harry, Prince William grabbed him by the collar, tore his necklace, and knocked him to the floor, thereby shattering the dog’s bowl. I must confess, noblesse oblige notwithstanding, forcing Meghan to eat off the floor is a bit strong, even if she is a Z-list American.

So there you have it folks: the man who killed half the Taliban with his bare hands, phoned his therapist immediately after getting chinned by his brother, because his necklace was broken. There’s no doubting the man’s sincerity though, easily gauged by his tearful 1:1 interviews. All he wants is his ‘father and brother back’ - which is presumably why he’s given 50 exclusives, released a Netflix documentary, and a £40M memoir telling the world what Jeremy Hunts they are.

Granted, Harry has played his hand badly - but Nutmeg hasn’t. Only this week, she topped a poll of celebrities the public are sick of - no mean feat, especially when you consider that James Corden was included in the line-up. Indeed, rumours are our beloved Duchess is set to release her own memoirs - and if you thought the ginger was a whinger, you ain’t seen nothing yet!

Still, you’ve got to have something to look forward to on the horizon, because there’s precious little else good happening in Britain right now. Unable to release ourselves from the clutches of the Tories, illegal immigration, or bad penny Sadiq Khan, we can’t even rid ourselves of Covid, which seems to be getting its second wind. Labour MPs are now calling for the reinstallation of lockdown rules after a recent spike in cases, while health chiefs say masks should be brought back: even though they’re pointless. It’s just as well we’ve got the NHS, the envy of the world, even if it refused to treat anybody for two years, and is still grumbling about ‘burnout’ and being ‘brought to the brink’. No wonder the first babies of 2023 gave NHS staff a busy New Year - it’s got to the point where they’re unable to deliver anything other than TikTok monologues.

Delivering for the woke this week meanwhile, were Imperial College, who urge students to ‘have hard conversations with friends and family who deny white privilege’. Not forgetting UK prisons, who have managed to piss away £11M on ‘diversity staff’ in just two years. You might think the prison service had bigger fish to fry like rates of recidivism, but it would appear not. The big news this week emanating from the penal service, was that female prisoners who call trans inmates ‘he’ or ‘him’ will face extra jail time - of course, it’s unclear whether this applies exclusively to the periods when they’re being raped by those 20-stone chicks with dicks.

In other news, the shortage of GP appointments (illegal immigrants aside) is leading people to DIY health treatments: what you lose in the odd bit of dismembering, you gain in the Black and Decker share price. Jill Biden has had a procedure to remove a ‘small lesion’ after it was found during a routine skin cancer screening, until someone pointed out that it was the President who had clearly got lost looking for the exit.

And finally, full marks to the Daily Mirror for the wokest headline of 2023: ‘Transgender man gives birth to non-binary partner's baby with female sperm donor’ - which roughly translates as ‘baby born to mentally ill parents’.

That was Frank’s week. Take care of yourselves. And remember, you’re not going mad - it’s just that everyone else is.

This is The Frank Report, signing off for the last time.

Please forgive the begging bowl message. If you enjoy The Frank Report, or any of my other work, please consider making a donation – no matter how small, it will really keep me going. (PS we are in the process of changing our payment provider, but are being stymied by red tape)

Thank you.

Frank Haviland