Burnham Blames Brexit and Thatcher for Britain’s Problems, Historians Asked to Keep Working Back Until Someone Finds the Romans
Downing Street launches archaeological search for the last British problem caused by somebody still alive
LONDON – Prime Minister Andy Burnham has used his first Commons address to identify two major culprits behind Britain’s economic and political difficulties: Brexit and Margaret Thatcher.
Burnham argued that Britain had taken a succession of “wrong turns” over roughly four decades, highlighting privatisation, centralisation, austerity and leaving the European Union as contributors to weak growth and diminished local control. Productivity data from the Office for National Statistics does show a long, flat, faintly embarrassed line.
Government historians have consequently been ordered to continue digging.
The archaeology of blame: dig deep enough and every pothole becomes a Roman road.
The current working theory is that Britain was functioning perfectly at 8:43 a.m. on 4 May 1979.
Before Thatcher entered Downing Street, trains arrived early, houses cost eleven pounds, every factory employed seventeen million people and Britain’s rivers ran with locally controlled custard.
Then somebody privatised British Gas and apparently the whole civilisation went.
National Blame Reserve Expanded to Meet Winter Demand
Margaret Thatcher has become one of Britain’s most successful renewable energy sources.
She has been dead since 2013, left office in 1990 and continues generating enough political electricity to power most Labour conferences.
Britain has achieved net zero on responsibility while remaining fully self-sufficient in grievance.
If an NHS appointment is late, Thatcher.
If your water company leaks, Thatcher.
If Manchester Piccadilly has cancelled a train, Thatcher.
If your Deliveroo chips arrive cold, one must consider the long-term consequences of monetarism.
Brexit occupies a similar position.
Britain voted to leave the European Union a decade ago, meaning Westminster can now invoke Brexit for approximately the next 600 years.
The Norman Conquest caused administrative problems for several centuries.
Brexit therefore has considerable precedent.
Burnham’s argument is not entirely frivolous. Britain has struggled with weak productivity and growth, and the prime minister has explicitly connected this to long-term decisions involving deindustrialisation, austerity and the country’s relationship with Europe — a case set out at length by researchers at the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Resolution Foundation.
Why Stop at 1979?
But politics becomes enormously convenient once history assumes liability.
Why restrict ourselves to Thatcher?
The Romans centralised decision-making.
The Normans introduced an elite whose members owned most of the land.
Henry VIII nationalised monasteries.
Charles I demonstrated unsustainable executive governance.
George III lost America.
Queen Victoria permitted the invention of Manchester.
Somewhere beneath Westminster there is probably a Labour policy adviser preparing a briefing titled “The Beaker People: Forty-Five Centuries of Underinvestment.”
A Domesday Book, updated quarterly, with a foreword explaining that none of it was this government’s doing.
Archaeology Replaces Economics as the Treasury’s Core Discipline
Burnham has promised a politics of optimism.
This is difficult because political optimism generally requires talking about tomorrow, whereas political blame has much richer opportunities in 1983.
The first principle of government is simple:
When inheriting a problem, identify who caused it.
When creating a problem, establish a review to identify who will eventually be blamed for it.
Ideally the culprit should be dead.
Dead politicians cannot go on breakfast television.
Margaret Thatcher is especially useful because she cannot appear on the BBC and say, “Andy, mate, you’ve had six weeks.”
The perfect opponent: no rebuttal, no right of reply, no rush-hour interview on the Today programme.
That is why British politics increasingly resembles an old married couple discussing who ruined the kitchen.
“It was your mother.”
“She died twelve years ago.”
“Exactly. And look at these cabinets.”
The Problem With Running Out of Centuries
Burnham’s difficulty is that eventually the historical tour ends and somebody asks what happens next Tuesday.
Public ownership costs money.
Infrastructure costs money.
Defence costs money.
Social programmes cost money.
Reducing taxes also costs money.
At this point Thatcher suddenly becomes less useful because HM Treasury does not accept historical grievance as legal tender.
The government may consequently need a broader doctrine.
Brexit caused low growth.
Thatcher caused inequality.
Austerity caused declining services.
Privatisation caused weak local control.
And any tax rise announced in October will presumably have been caused by all four.
This is known as deductive economics.
If every national difficulty originated before the current government, every current government policy is technically an emergency repair.
Nobody is spending £20 billion.
They are “correcting forty years of failure.”
That sounds much cheaper.
Not a spending spree, then. A restoration project. Grade II listed, funded by grade A borrowing.
The danger is that Britain eventually runs out of history.
Then ministers may be forced to blame events that occurred during their own administration.
Government archivists — who really do keep the receipts, at the National Archives — are reportedly confident this can be prevented by reaching the Romans before Christmas.
After that come the Celts.
Then the glaciers.
And finally the Big Bang, whose reckless programme of uncontrolled expansion remains the earliest known example of growth without adequate Treasury oversight.
Fifteen Humorous Observations Behind the Headline
- Britain’s favourite political renewable resource is Margaret Thatcher, who has now been blamed for more modern problems than electricity, gravity and disappointing sandwiches.
- Every government inherits a mess and bequeaths a slightly better-documented one.
- Blame is the only British industry that never needed a subsidy.
- A dead prime minister is the ideal opponent: no rebuttal, no memoir, no morning round.
- Brexit has roughly 590 years of blameable life remaining, which is excellent value.
- The Norman Conquest is still causing paperwork, so patience is advised.
- If it takes forty years to break something, it apparently takes six weeks to be excused from fixing it.
- “Wrong turns” is the parliamentary term for a road map drawn by somebody else.
- Optimism is about tomorrow. Blame has far better material in 1983.
- The Treasury accepts pounds, euros and dollars, but not historical grievance.
- Every £20 billion becomes affordable the moment you call it an emergency repair.
- Deductive economics: if the problem predates you, the invoice does not.
- Britain nationalises its monasteries, privatises its gas and blames whichever came second.
- Somewhere a policy adviser is costing the Beaker People’s underinvestment in flint.
- The Big Bang remains the earliest recorded case of expansion without a fiscal rule.
Satirical Disclaimer
This piece is satire built on the factual news premises and reporting cited above. The exaggeration, absurd deductions and imaginary administrative consequences are commentary, not additional reporting.
Alan Nafzger was born in Lubbock, Texas, the son Swiss immigrants. He grew up on a dairy in Windthorst, north central Texas. He earned degrees from Midwestern State University (B.A. 1985) and Texas State University (M.A. 1987). University College Dublin (Ph.D. 1991). Dr. Nafzger has entertained and educated young people in Texas colleges for 37 years. Nafzger is best known for his dark novels and experimental screenwriting. His best know scripts to date are Lenin’s Body, produced in Russia by A-Media and Sea and Sky produced in The Philippines in the Tagalog language. In 1986, Nafzger wrote the iconic feminist western novel, Gina of Quitaque. He currently lives in Holloway, North London. Contact: [email protected]
