There are not terabytes enough on the web to review 2022, so I must look at 2023, in advance.
January: This month’s prime minister is still Rishi Sunak; a remarkably long tenure. He has already become the longest serving Prime Minister since Boris Johnson. If he can hold out, he may exceed even the premiership of George Canning.
The slopes are white in the Alps, but the hospitals of Switzerland and France are in crisis, so skiing is inadvisable (and the Valais police still have a warrant out after what happened in Verbier).
Rishi starts getting the band together again for a COVID revival, but somehow the magic has gone.
February: Having failed to destroy the Ukrainian Army when the first of Russia’s most famous generals was unleashed last month, Vladimir Vladimorich Putin sends the second. These are the two who throughout history have proved victorious for Russia: however this time neither General Janvier nor General Fevrier has the desired effect. Russian media reports that both have tragically fallen out of a window.
The snows have finally arrived in Aviemore, so at least there is somewhere to go skiing that has a working, private hospital near the foot of the slope and has a Tesla Supercharger. Unless Nicola is still trying to have me arrested.
March: Jeremy Hunt permits the new Prime Minister to announce that the Budget will take place on 15 March. To prove that the Tories are the low-tax party, Mr Hunt announces a series of generous tax increases across the board. Suddenly, while consumer prices are rising, nevertheless shares are a lot cheaper to buy.
April: In the traditional 1st April tradition, there come into force all those Acts of Parliament passed in the previous year to repeal those which came into force on 1st April 2022.
Also on that day, the feast day of St Boris, Mr Johnson goes to the King to be appointed Prime Minister; the fourth or fifth of his reign.
Later in the month, the Meteorological Office makes a grave announcement that temperatures are rising severely, and that instead of a potential 2 degree increase over 80 years, the temperature in April has already risen by 15° C in the last four months.
May: God Save the King – the Coronation. Nothing else matters this month. The crowds go wild with enthusiasm and click-baiters go madder still.
Nicola Sturgeon finally realises that common decency and respect are important in a serious politician at these times, and tries to pretend to have one or other of them.
June: The nation is just waking up from a long hangover to find that the recession has just woken up too. Worse still, all the foreigners who flew in for the Coronation, to see how to do things properly, have abandoned their own shops and workplaces, plunging Britain’s main trading partners into a steep economic dive. Still, at least they kept the pub open for a few months longer.
Boris receives a hushed telephone call from Leo, the Wet Taoiseach, asking for Ireland to be let back into the United Kingdom, and they will promise to be very sorry for all the trouble.
Last posting day before Christmas.
July: Vladimir Putin orders a massive new offensive against several targets in the Ukraine, in the east and the west and from the Crimea, with a major offensive south from Byelorussia to Kiev itself. He does not realise that he has been replaced behind his back, and cannot understand why the officials around him have taken to wearing white coats.
The Tsaritsa, fresh from her coronation, appoints a new Prime Minister of Russia, choosing a man with a solid Russian name who has just found himself unemployed – Aleksander Boris Shtanleyovich Ivanov. Boris may be unreliable, but he is Godunov.
August: I’ll be in Provence, so I’m not really bothered. Good luck to the new Prime Minister – nice to see a Scot in charge again.
September: After thirty years in power, Alexander Lukashenko finally ends his term as President of Belarus. The Tsaritsa appoints him instead as governor of a new Russian province, Byelorussia.
At a peace summit in Lemberg, the political leaders of Russia and the Ukraine finally meet and shake hands. The world may wonder how a comedian journalist who got famous for playing outrageous bawdy comedy on the telly ever came to be leader of a major country – but as we watch Boris and Volodymyr, shaking hands again in very changed circumstances, we realise that for both of them the fact is more outrageous than fiction would dare to be.
October: Scientists at the ‘University’ of East Anglia report with alarm a massive dieback amongst trees of many species, as a result of man-made climate change: whole forests of trees are seeing their leaves discolour and fall off.
Jeremy Hunt announces the Autumn Statement. Few people are listening by now. Matt Hancock is told by the Chief Whip that he might be allowed back into the Party but, no, he cannot be this month’s Prime Minister.
November: Activists declare that fireworks are a sign of white supremacy and inherently racist, on the basis that this will get them a few inches in the Grauniad. Immediately several local authorities cancel their displays. Others invest in rockets which, they are assured, burst with black sparkles.
COP28 begins in Dubai. Suddenly the comedy in a Boris Johnson premiership looks tame. A scientist attending announces his grave concern for the climate, for while he expected an Autumn drop, he measured the temperature on his balcony and found it much higher than it was a few weeks ago when he was back in Norfolk.
December: Boris is sacked as Prime Minister of Russia as he has failed to have anyone murdered in the whole time he has been in office. He returns to London and is accidentally appointed a Prime Minister here. The King orders a revolving door to be installed in Downing Street, ready for Micheál Martin when he is appointed in the New Year.
