Michael Gove today announced an inquiry into the state of school meals, or as he likes to call them 'tuck'. It forms part of the Conservative government's manifesto pledge to 'bring back the language of Billy Bunter Britain'.
The Conservatives have long held that the major problem with Britain was that people no longer say 'rotter', 'blimey', 'not on' and the like. Their plan to rectify this has been in place for years and is surprisingly subtle. Rather than using the language themselves, and being accused of elitism, they would set about establishing personae that warranted no other language to describe them.
Before their general election victory the talisman of this drive was obviously Boris Johnson. Using the public platform of London mayor he acted as a man who could only be described using some almost defunct words from the heyday of the English chaps. He was at one moment a 'blabbering idiot', at the next a 'nincompoop', a 'berk on a bicycle', then a 'mumbling buffoon' and 'complete and utter shambles'.
Since gaining power the momentum behind this subliminal vocabulary shift has increased. David Cameron has done his best to act a 'toff' on all occasions, marking himself out also as a 'sniveling creep' with his texts to Rebecca Brookes. He has made his cabinet ministers act as warped versions of prep school 'fags'. In the original version, a senior boy's 'fag' would notoriously often have to go and sit on and the (then outdoors) lavatory seats until they were warm enough for his genteel buttocks. Cameron's take on this has been to turn his cabinet ministers into reverse 'fags', making them sit in all the political hot seats, only stepping in himself once things have cooled down. However, Cameron has sadly strayed too far into the line of also being aptly described as an 'all round douchebag' and a 'bit of a cunt' for his efforts to be deemed a complete success.
The most valuable contribution to the cause has come from Michael Gove. Not important enough to be called a cunt yet not worthy of being called anything much else in common parlance, he has forced people to turn to old school, prep school, vocabulary. His face screams, 'I am a twerp', his voice proclaims proudly 'I'm a wally'. When he ordered up thousands of Bibles for schools then was scolded by Cameron for wasting public money and forced to leave them in a warehouse in India, the only word for it was 'fanny'. He consistently epitomizes the phrase 'sticking your oar in'. Today's otherwise inexplicable gesture of focusing on school dinners amongst all else that is wrong with the country can only be a valiant attempt to get the word 'tuck' back in the public discourse. We take our hats off to you Michael, you are a true linguistic revivalist and a complete and utter 'tucker'.
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