The dug's predictions for 2012

Sunday, 01 January 2012 17:58

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By Paul Kavanagh

The dug gets out his crystal dug-bowl and channels his spirit guide Mystic Mug to tell us what's in store for the coming year.

January

Lib Dem Member of the European Parliament George Lyon again requires the services of the European Parliament bureaucracy to discover stuff he could have looked up on Wikipedia.  Fresh from December's triumph when he told us Scotland has a smaller population than Greece, this month's shocking revelations to save the Union include the news that Mr Lyon has discovered that if Scotland becomes independent Edinburgh won't become the capital of France, and that when you look at things that are very far away, they seem to be smaller.  

Jim Murphy promises that he'll make a positive case for the Union very soon now.  It won't be the positive Tory case for the Union promised by David Cameron, Jim won't talk to Dave at all during 2012, at least not in public.  Labour only co-operates with the Tories in secret backroom deals.

February

Rumours that Margaret Thatcher is at death's door spark off a furious row when it's revealed that taxpayers will be expected to cough up the cost of burying her and Corrie might be cancelled the day of the state funeral.  A campaign is organised to inter 'Attila the Handbag' underneath the floor of Blackpool Ballroom to allow as many people as possible to show their respects.  5 million Scottish people apply to be contestants on the next series of Strictly.

It snows and it's all the fault of the SNP.  Jim Murphy says that the positive case for the Union has been delayed due to the wrong sort of snow on the line.  He calls on the SNP transport minister to resign.

March

The Leveson Inquiry hears that the positive case for the Union cannot appear this month because it's been cited in a divorce case and is being hounded by paparazzi.  The positive case for the Union's brief marriage to Katie Price fell apart after 3 weeks due to irreconcilable differences.  The couple disagreed violently over which of them contained the highest proportion of artificial parts, invention, and media hype, but things came to a head when a photo shoot for Hello! magazine went terribly wrong.  Even after days trying to depict the couple in the best possible light, and hours spent afterwards touching up the pics in photoshop, the positive case for the Union remained invisible.

April

In an ill advised attempt to get Johann Lamont and the Labour front bench to crack a smile during the local election campaign, the party fills its campaign balloons with laughing gas.  However the pressure is too much for ageing George Foulkes who springs a leak in a taxi and scooshes off into the stratosphere, where he was last seen clinging to a British Secret Services satellite spying on China.  Now George can peer all he likes and no longer needs to imagine that he's lofty, plus he's got a great view of the pandas.

The Unionist parties say the positive case for the Union will be along just as soon as they can finalise the details on the private sponsorship deal.  The hope is that by calling it the MacUnion they can earn millions in sponsorship from fast food companies and keep Scots in chips and burgers at the same time.

May

In the Scottish local elections, Labour loses control of Glasgow City Cooncil after more than 70 years.  The party is left without control of a single local council.  Sally Magnusson weeps openly during the BBC's election night funeral service.  Labour's representative on the panel is replaced with a psychotherapist specialising in grief and bereavement as it's the closest the party's going to get to councilling.  

Ruth Krankie announces that the positive case for the Union will be along just the moment she untangles her abseiling ropes and has made sure that David 'Paddington' Mundell learns how to do up the toggles on his duffle coat.  Poor dear hasn't realised he's got to take off his mittens and put down the jar of marmalade.

June

There's a special bank holiday for us all to celebrate Liz's jubilee and experience the joys of Britishness.  BBC Scotlandshire is driven to desperate measures trying to find a happy Scottish royalist punter to interview for the "we're all a big happy Union family" segment it's obliged to broadcast.  Eventually they find a clown in a kilt and a false ginger beard who gives his name as Charles from Balmoral.

One proposal mooted to help the Scots to identify better with the Royal family is to rename the country Kateland, as both the Scots and Kate Middleton are getting royally screwed.  But Scots remain resolutely unimpressed by the Royal jubilee.  Why we're supposed to get excited about the Queen's raspberry flavoured ice lolly isn't explained to the Scots, but apparently she's been sucking at it for 60 years.

Scotland displays as much enthusiasm for the event as it did for the Royal Wedding despite a three hour special on the BBC about how Scottish Prince Charles must be because he keeps wearing a kilt, and isn't it just marvellous how hard he works at sending annoying letters to government ministers demanding things he's read in the Daily Mail.  As the Unionists think Scots are thick, they don't realise we understand the word 'patronising'.

It had been hoped that the Jubilee would stand in for the positive case for the Union this month, but instead Scots experience a mass outbreak of nausea due to over-exposure to Nicholas Witchell.  A&E departments are overwhelmed.  Labour blames the SNP.

July

The Scottish secretary is forced to deny rumours that he only got a job in the cabinet because George Osborne finds the top of the Moorester's head is a convenient flat surface for his cup of lapsang souchong and Peake-Freane custard creams.

Danny Alexander announces that the positive case for the Union got eaten by the dug, but he'll have it for us next month once he can locate his special pen with the Olympics logo that can write in invisible ink.  In the meantime he tells us a scare story told to him by a guy he met on holiday.  If Scotland becomes independent, people who resemble characters from the Muppet Show and the Munsters will be legally barred from standing for public office.  Danny and the Scottish Secretary think this would be a bad thing.

August

It's the London Olympics.  Most sane people would like to leave the country for a month, but since we're all skint thanks to Tory and Labour sooking up to bankers, we're stuck with the telly.  Showing London off to the world, the spectacular opening ceremony features choreographed hoodies using the Olympic flame to torch sportswear shops, as people in shell suits leap hurdles made from overturned shopping trolleys while being chased by the riot police.  

There's no positive case for the Union this month, as it was supposed to be made by the Olympic Fitba Team GB.  Team GB performs exactly as English fitba teams always do, massive hype and grandiose claims fuelled by an overweening sense of entitlement which ends in failure, disappointment, and over-paid sportsmen getting pissed in pubs.  There's a mass outbreak of smugness in Scotland as the team crashes out of the competition in the early stages.  Scottish urology departments are full to bursting with people who'd peed themselves laughing.  Labour blames the SNP.  

September

A report by an international team of scientific experts, Nobel peace prize winners, economists, and celebrity hairdressers conclusively demonstrates that an independent Scotland would be amongst the most prosperous, stable and democratic nations on Earth and have a really stylish hair-do.  BBC Scotlandshire ignores it and leads with a report from some bloke Dave Cameron went to school with which claims that there will be no investment in an independent Scotland because no one in the City of London speaks Gaelic.

The positive case for the Union would have been made this month, but an MI5 officer was checking the top secret document for security implications and left his laptop on the 6.15 from Waterloo to Aldershot.

October

The true extent of Labour's declining membership becomes apparent when the party's Scottish conference is held in Frank Macaveety's Battle Bus, parked just behind the Co-op in Shettleston Road.  Highlight of the conference is a two for one offer on baked beans.  Johann Lamont's drive to make the party more efficient is paying off, now it offers twice the gas for the same price as before.

The positive case for the Union is currently held up in heavy traffic on the North Circular near Neasden.  Dave Cameron cites this as an example of how investment in London transport really is a Union benefit which explains why Scottish natural resources should be used to pay for it.

November

Ruth Krankie and Paddington Mundell finally get the green light for their new children's TV series.  The show teaches little children how we can be stronger together than we are apart by handing over all their pocket money to the class bully, in return he'll let them hold his cricket bat until he needs it to beat up the Iraqi kid.

The positive case for the Union can't come out this month, because it's come down with a nasty head cold.  Labour says it's the fault of the SNP for not protecting the NHS against Tory cuts.

December

Panic and hysteria grip the planet due to the ancient Mayan prediction that the word will end on December 21.  In an attempt to stave off global destruction, Scottish pagans sacrifice the last Empire biscuits to Cara Mellog, the Celtic god of snacks and munchies.  The next day a Scottish archaeologist discovers a Mayan hieroglyphic inscription dedicated to the god of chocolate, Tlunnok Tleekaik, which makes it clear that the passage everyone thought said "Yucatan blast scorches the world" really reads "UK can't last, Scots tell the world."   A grateful United Nations immediately votes Scotland to full membership.