Thread by @RussInCheshire

🧵THREAD

It is September 1939.

As the German military sweeps across a beleaguered Europe, the British PM reassures an anxious parliament that the crisis will be solved - not by armed forces, but by Market Forces.

He is cheered to the rafters for his insights.

A centrally-directed Command Economy is ineffective, as we have always been told.

So training budgets are immediately slashed for our military, since the govt's team of top economic advisors has determined that supply-side excess will be harmful to our efficiency.

Anybody wishing to sign up to join the military must take on a govt-backed (but privately supplied) training loan of £9,000 per annum, on the basis that soldiers value training more if they have had to personally fund it.

This debt will produce a more dedicated fighting force.

The various branches of the military are instructed not to co-operate with one another.

Competition is always more effective, and an Internal Market is created to ensure the best outcomes.

This is based on the self-evident principle that if the RAF provided air support to our infantry, it would prevent the infantry from achieving "self-reliance".

The pain they go through today will – in time – produce more effective results.

Building on this successful strategy, the British First and Second Armies are instructed to bid for reduced funding, with the losers being decommissioned.

The army will just have to do more with less, in line with the agreed ideology.

Across the channel, as the British Expeditionary Force is driven back towards the beaches of Dunkirk, it is found that our govt's core European Non-Cooperation policy objective for the last decade has accidentally caused 3-day delays for rescuers trying to depart from Dover.

Rather than change policy, the govt outsources (to one of their schoolfriends) a programme encouraging ordinary Britons to stand on their doorsteps at 7am every Thursday, and clap our dying soldiers for 5 minutes.

This is deemed to be a massive patriotic success.

Focus groups have discovered the govt's core voters object to helping people who live overseas.

So as Jersey is overrun, the Ministry of War is abolished, and its responsibilities are first merged with those of the Foreign Office, and then quietly abolished.

Britain’s newspapers demand the Channel Islands maintain their new freedoms from restrictive lefty British laws or crushing British taxes.

Newspaper owners patriotically relocate to Guernsey to take advantage of the new opportunities provided by the invaders' deregulation.

It is better for national morale to be SEEN doing things than to actually DO things.

Rather than attending urgent meetings to discuss the war, ministers pose serenely with apples, or dress up as Lord Nelson while posing in a tank.

It scores well on their Pathégram.

But those tanks are, sadly, in short supply.

This is because rather than falling for the socialist trap of intervening to direct the building of our armaments, the govt opted for the more effective measure of contracting the work to enthusiastic independent suppliers.

A "VIP lane" is created for rich suppliers with connections to govt officials.

The reasoning is clear: anybody capable of hoarding money will (obviously) be equally good at building tanks, and if their steep learning curve means some of our soldiers have to die – too bad.

Food supplies run short, but Atlantic Convoys are deemed to be a part of a "socialist agenda".

Instead, the govt denounces hungry Brits for wasting money on Anderson Shelters, and reminds us that their generation did perfectly well without hipster food like "turnip toast".

India, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada offer to come to our aid, but the govt insists "They Need Us More Than We Need Them".

Britain tears up the Commonwealth Agreement from a couple of years earlier, on the basis our ministers didn't understand it when they signed it.

Polish soldiers and airmen head to Britain to help in the war effort, but – in line with the will of the people – our Home Secretary orders the Royal Navy to drive them back across the channel.

Anybody who makes it to our shores is immediately shipped to camps in Rwanda.

The war is not going as well as we were told it would be by the PM’s patriotic campaign in 1939. More efficiency savings are clearly required.

So the govt privatises the RAF for 40 per cent of its estimated worth.

The price for the RAF is based on an evaluation provided by the merchant bank for which the Chancellor used to work (and where the Chancellor will return to work as soon as he’s out of office).

From now on, bombing missions will be carried out by the contract’s winners, "EasyBomb", a company that operates from a location 22 miles away from the location of our pilots, for cost-saving reasons.

Civil service cuts prevented due diligence on EasyBomb, and it is now found that having signed a 12-year contract, they cannot carry out actual bombing raids: they don’t have enough staff to load the bombs, because govt policy forced the bomb-handlers out of the country.

But the market will always find the best solution, and EasyBomb is no exception.

They sign a lucrative contract to firebomb the East End of London on behalf of the Luftwaffe, thus saving millions in air fuel, and maximising shareholder value.

An added benefit – they don't have to drop bombs from 10,000ft, so explosions can be targeted accurately through the recipients' letterbox. Cheap AND efficient.

The chairman of EasyBomb receives a £12 million bonus, is knighted for services to industry.

Trouble for residents – or as we now call them, customers – whose homes have been destroyed by outsourced German bombs. It is not the govt's responsibility to house people: the market will provide.

The homeless are condemned for turning to foodbanks, cos not THAT market.

Their children are evacuated to towns across the country. But the govt taxes people with spare rooms, and refuses to get involved in connecting refugees with prospective home-owners.

The Home Secretary tells parliament – to cheers – that this is the Will of the People.

Since we are now bombing on behalf of Nazis, we don't need a defence. Our fleet of Spitfires and Wellington Bombers is sold to Japan, who repurpose them for their adventures in Pearl Harbour.

Our PM boasts in parliament about this great success story for British Innovation.

Our newly strengthened business connections with the Japan can now be exploited to deliver shareholder value.

A team of investment bankers (from the bank the Chancellor moonlights at) has identified Bletchley Park as an asset that could be outsourced for greater returns.

Our "Woke" codebreakers only work 12 hours a day, and at least one of them appears to be a homosexual.

So Bletchley is outsourced to Japan, where British POWs show us the way by working longer hours for less money.

This, we all agree, is the most effective delivery mechanism.

As the black market booms, families across the country feel ripped off by a bunch of greedy criminals exploiting a crisis for their own ends.

But the govt refuses to intervene in the Black Market, with ministers telling the public "Profiteering is not a dirty word"

The sight of women factory workers wearing trousers and cutting their hair short has upset a few retired majors in Bournemouth.

So our leaders ignore the urgent global crisis, and instead spend their days arguing whether it's OK for people to wear clothes of a different gender.

The govt announces that a centrally-planned "socialist" D-Day would be detrimental to landlords in the Normandy property market.

Instead, they hand a £400 "rebate" to each UK household, and inform us it's now our responsibility to work out how to storm Omaha beach.

No boats are available to cross the Channel on D-Day, because we closed our shipyards when it was discovered unions were asking to be paid a living wage to build the landing craft.

We must compete with the enemy, who manage to make armaments for free.

Richard Dimbleby delivers shocking reports from Europe, depicting bonfires of books, the wasting of entire cities, and the horror of prison camps.

Our govt deplores the camps, but points out their competitiveness proves how important it is to never EVER ask for wages.

Our PM condemns the reports as an example of the BBC’s "woke agenda", and vows to privatise the service.

Ministers then announce a "bonfire of regulations", plans for British cities where no laws apply, imprisonment people who vilify Britain, and the abolition of human rights.

The PM resigns after throwing a massive firework display during a blackout.

But he doesn't leave office, or do any governing. Instead, he commandeers a fighter plane to play at dressing up, then asks his agent to organise a very profitable lecture-tour of the Rhineland.

Despite this, his core voters still demand his return to office, on the grounds that he has Got Dunkirk Done, seemingly oblivious to the fact Dunkirk was a monumental military disaster that led to us being driven out of the place we were supposed to be conquering.

Meanwhile the govt decides to ignore the war for several months, so it can conduct a leadership contest with an electorate of just 1000 elderly pensioners in Guildford.

The main campaign issues are: how to protect statues of Hindenburg, and avoid paying tax that funds the war.

This is not a thread about WWII

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