I don’t know about you, but I’m absolutely Brexhausted
The UK’S decision to leave the EU has given rise to any number of fascinating new words. There’s “Brexit”, “Brexiteer”, “Brino”, “Bregrets”, “Brexodus” – and now, as Theresa May begs the EU for more time to work out what on earth to do next, “Brextension”.
But what other useful new Brexpressions will we be hearing in the coming weeks?
Brexhume (verb). To bring a completely unchanged Brexit deal back before the Commons in a 78th attempt to pass it.
Brexercise in futility (noun). Any attempt to explain how the Secretary of State for Brexit can passionately urge MPS to vote for a delay to Brexit, and then immediately vote against it himself.
Brexpertise (noun). The blend of skill, wisdom and judgment that leads a prime minister to permit her chief whip – the man in charge of getting MPS to vote for her plan for Brexit – not to vote for her plan for Brexit.
Brexpletives (noun). The considered response to the news that Parliament has now voted against every conceivable Brexit outcome.
Brexistential crisis (noun). The moment a voter, journalist, or prime minister starts to question whether their life has meaning.
Brexhaustion (noun). A heartfelt longing for the days when no one outside their immediate families had ever heard of Steve Baker, Anna Soubry, Andrew Bridgen or Lord Adonis.
Brexhibitionist (noun). Backbench Conservative MP who can be found at any time of day or night on television news programmes, typically bellowing spurious analogies about the Second World War.
Brexcitement (noun). Eager anticipation of the moment when representatives of the German car industry leap out from wherever they’ve been hiding and shout, “Don’t worry, Britain! Here we are to save the day, by ordering Angela Merkel to order Jean-claude Juncker to order Michel Barnier to offer you a completely brilliant last-minute deal!”
Brexcommunicate (verb). To deselect a parliamentary candidate for displaying insufficient enthusiasm about the prospect of a no-deal Brexit.
Brextortion (noun). The process of extracting £39billion from the UK Government after a no-deal Brexit, by simply refusing to talk to it until it hands it over in a panic.
Brexpiry date (noun). The moment when the UK’S political agenda will finally stop being dominated by Brexit, forecast by experts to coincide roughly with the heat death of the sun.
Clearly the campaign to tackle knife crime will require imagination and fresh thinking, so we shouldn’t be too quick to dismiss new ideas out of hand. All the same, I suspect that this week’s intriguing proposal from Scott Mann – the Conservative MP for North Cornwall – may need some fine-tuning.
Mr Mann argues that “every knife sold in the UK” should “have a GPS tracker fitted in the handle”, and that the Government should establish a “national database” of knives, “like we do with guns”.
Aside from the expense and manpower involved in locating and then fitting a GPS tracker to every single one of the hundreds of millions of kitchen knives already in private possession, and then ordering householders to ensure they keep their knives’ batteries fully charged at all times, the main drawback, I fear, would be the potential for misunderstanding. Say, for example, that the tracker screen at Scotland Yard shows up a suspiciously high concentration of knives at an address in the St James’s area. Possibly a stand-off between rival gangs is in progress. Armed officers raid the premises, only to discover that it’s the Queen hosting a state banquet for the Chinese premier.
“Terribly sorry, Your Majesty. But do you have a licence for that fish knife?” In the US, the FBI is investigating allegations that rich parents have paid bribes to get their children into top universities. As a parent myself, I of course understand the impulse to do the best for one’s children, and give them the brightest possible future. But I would never advocate bribery.
Because frankly, it offers very poor value for money.
Say your teenage son is an all-out dunce. So you pay bribes to get him into a top university. The trouble is, your son will be too dim to pass the course. So then you’ll have to bribe someone to pass it for him.
Since your son knows nothing about the course he’s just passed, however, you’ll have to bribe an employer to hire him. But since your son hasn’t got a clue how to do the job, you’ll have to bribe a colleague to do it for him. But since his employer already knows your son is useless, he’ll never rise up the ranks. So either you bribe the employer to promote him every couple of years, before finally bribing the chief executive to let your son call himself chief executive while the real chief executive secretly continues to be chief executive. Or you bribe someone else to set up your son’s own company for him. And to design, produce and market a product that the company can sell. And then bribe the public to buy it.
The risk, of course, is that people will find out about all the bribery you’ve been doing. So then you’ve got to bribe whistleblowers not to talk about it, journalists not to report it, the police not to investigate it, and juries not to find you guilty.
You see how the costs mount up. It’s a lovely idea, but it really isn’t worth it.