The year begins in the birthplace of modern democracy. Tunisia. Revolution spreads so far and so fast that some news organisations consider showing us actual maps so that for a couple of weeks we can all pretend that we know which continent each country is in. Regimes fall, dictators tumble, we start to think the world map will rewrite itself. Just as we’d begun to figure out what the world map looks like, too. Gadaffi halts the domino effect of the new democracy by appearing on television and being mistaken by the casual channel surfer for Charlie Sheen. In any case, it’s off to war again.  It’s one of those wars we forget about very quickly.

The Tories roll on, with more bright ideas than Q in James Bond. We consider closing libraries, banning forests and criminalising  soup runs for the homeless. Et cetera, et cetera. We live in exciting times. Lots of people take a Saturday afternoon to walk the streets of London and protest about all sorts of things.  Who makes the news? Ten rock throwing morons. Who takes the blame? 138 peaceful protesters of UKUncut who’d spent the afternoon sitting in Fortnam and Mason. Despite the direst of economic times in which we have absolutely no money whatsoever, it turns out we do have enough money to pointlessly prosecute 138 peaceful protesters for sitting in a shop on a Saturday afternoon.

Japan has an earthquake and a tsunami and nuclear power plants. We watch TV all day and every day. We all learn a lot about nuclear power, which we all then promptly forget.

The NHS is not reformed into an early grave just yet – possibly because of this rap? Who knows. Not the Tories, who look mildly nervous for the first time. Anyway, NHS reform heads off on spring break. The cuts begin. We wait for Armageddon.

We hold a referendum on AV and the country is united in its determination to thoroughly understand the intricacies of the electoral process and ramifications of its reform. Well, I’m sure we would have been had it not been for the competing attraction of two people getting married. Bloodshed in Syria fades into insignificance beside something like that. AV never stood a chance.

Osama bin Laden is killed! A monumental story, the culmination of a decade long historical international narrative. Obama looks re-electable for as many as three days together. The world debates whether we have a right to see graphic photos of a bloodied corpse. And then everyone forgets all about it. So much news, so little time.

It is a year so filled with news that there is no room for silly season. Instead of silly season, we get Murdochgate. Murdochgate! The greatest screwball comedy since the golden age of Hollywood. Once again, we gather around TV sets and watch such glorious characters as Rebekah, Rebekah’s Hair, two men who had never met or spoken to anyone employed by their media empire, and of course that funny little man who seemed to live in the television studios, running from show to show and growing madder by the day. And Cameron is involved! He is hauled back from his holidays for questioning. And the police are involved! They all start to resign. And then people get arrested! Truly this is the greatest silly season of all time. What care we for imminent economic collapse when there is such joy as this in our summer? In our collective mudochgasm over murdochgate, it was easy to forget that a vital British institution had been lost, one that we had always assumed would be an unending source of breasts and bollocks. Bye bye, News of the World. I can’t say how much we’ll miss you.

We pause briefly for tragedy in Norway and the passing of Amy Winehouse. Then it’s right back to business: world news is now unfolding outside out very own windows. So we lock them, close the curtains and follow it, panic-stricken,  on TV. Yes, it’s the Great Riots of ’11. The riots are organised by rampaging little dipshits who, it emerges, are communicating with one another, using technology. Both dipshits and technology are debated heartily. The nation goes to war, in that we assume a siege mentality for three days and the Prime Minister is hauled back from his holidays yet again to make some wise and pragmatic comments about rubber bullets and water cannons.

In the background, the US economy slouches towards Bethlehem, the Eurozone makes repeated references to something called contagion (which we assume refer to the disaster movie of the same name due for release later in the year) and Greece and Spain experience widespread popular protest. The Arab spring turns into summer too, but by this point of the year we are only capable of processing the sort of stories that get their own gate-suffix.

Or that have a really good poster.

Occupy! The biggest protest ever! Since, like, 1968! And the best poster ever! It’s a ballerina on a bull! The poster is fucking excellent. Occupy Wall Street begins in New York, which is where Wall Street is, and then spreads across the States. It is peaceful, without specific political purpose, and derided for not having a solution to problems no elected leader on the globe is currently able to fix and many can barely spell. Stupid hippies. It finds its way to London. We do not occupy Wall Street, or the London Stock Exchange. We occupy St Pauls, because the vicar said we might. Ah, working class heroes.

The comedy world loses one of its own, as beloved son Berlusconi finally leaves office. This event is somewhat overshadowed by the prospect of inconceivable financial collapse in both Greece and Italy. And Spain. And Portugal. And maybe Belgium. And everywhere that isn’t Germany. The Eurozone begins to look a bit like Rupert Murdoch. Which formerly successful country do we hastily shut down in order to save the empire? Recession looms. Peace in Europe is declared to no longer be a certainty. The Greek government falls. Spain elects a new government that makes the Tories look cute ‘n’ cuddly.  US Republican presidential primaries introduce a series of characters who make George W look like an intellectual giant with a doctorate in rationalism. There is talk of military strikes against Iran. Hang on, isn’t 2012 meant to be the year the world ends?

In a year of such rapid change and permanently boggle-eyed befuddlement, the few remaining certainties in our world become all the more important. Like – Ed Milliband will continue to be rather useless. Or – the price of gas will always go up. And – the speed of light is a constant. That sort of thing.

And then come the neutrinos. In an attempt to stage their own revolution or riot, the neutrinos break the speed of light. Well, fuck the neutrinos. Their behaviour is roundly condemned and they are given punitive jail sentences for advertising their intended act of civil disobedience on social media. That bloody showed them.

The markets had crashed, the recession loomed on;
It was hard to be cheery when the jobs were all gone.
The bills on the mantle would never be paid
But at least they were better than those needing aid
Because those days were gone; the days when the state
Might support those in need or who fell in dire straits
Were a thing of the past now – it was each on their own
And Christmas is hard if you might lose your home.

The country was struggling, debt and despair
No Santa to wish for, it wasn’t quite fair.
And no sleigh bells were coming, no hope and no cheer
A dismal prospective at this time of year

For Santa the socialist was barred from this land
His renegade policies now had been banned
It was wrong to give gifts to the poor and bereft
To the homeless, the jobless, the unions, the left.
Presents to kids who had worked not a day?
Everyone knew that this just led the way
To a life as a scrounger, a benefit cheat
So Santa was banished, the year’s greatest feat

But all was not lost because on this one night
One man had the power to make everything right:
(Though many by now thought him naught but a prick)
The great Mister C, and his reindeer called Nick

Some said he was cruel and unfair and unkind
Some said that his reindeer was out of his mind
Some said he was only a privileged twit
A Bullingdon bully who cared not a whit.

But at this time of year, even Scrooge could come good
Though the odds were against it, maybe Mr C could?
When rattling chains came and banged at his door
He opened it up to the ghost of Before

The ghost of Before and the ghost of Right Now
Had come on this night to show Mr C how
Their lives and careers, once so powerful and great,
Had ended in loathing and lynch mobs and hate

Mrs Thatcher and Murdoch told cautionary tales
And Mr C knew that a wise man would hail
The message they brought him and heed what they said
While Nick whimpered in fear and hid under the bed.

His heroes departed, Mr C locked the door
But this night was not finished, there was still to be more.
The Ghost of To Come is worst ghost of all
And To Come was now marching in right through the wall.

Mr C held his nerve, much braver than most,
His feet planted firmly, he stared down the ghost.
But To Come showed him something that all wise men fear
The results of elections in upcoming years.

 
Then it was over and the ghosts were all gone
Mr C saw the light now – there was work to be done!
So he saddled his reindeer and flew through the night
It wasn’t too late – they could still put this right!

Such hardship and struggle they saw as they flew
So many in trouble, so much they could do.
Though the weight of their bags almost caused them to crash
They got to the banks and they gave out the cash.

For the way to save Britain was to give to the rich
Though he knew in his heart that the poor would still bitch
But what could be done with the ungrateful swine?
Whatever he did, the scroungers would whine.

With gifts handed out to the good and the great
He hopped on his sleigh for it wasn’t too late
To pop down the chimney of good little bankers
So what if the bitter still thought them all wankers?

With joy in his heart, Mr C passed out cheques
Bigger than anyone dared to expect
To each high ranking banker and financial advisor
No one again would dare call him a miser!

The bankers all happy, Mr C headed home
Locked Nick in a stable and picked up the phone
For the press must be told of this great Christmas tale
And headlines prepared in the fine Daily Mail.

At home safe and sound Mr C filled his glass
His work was now done and the year it had passed
Nick in the stable was carefully tethered
Just a toast to us all being in it together
Was left to be raised by our champion of right
Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night.

To see a doctor in my old country costs about fifty euros. Some will recount tales of a local doctor who only charged forty, some will bitch about the bastard who charges seventy. Doctors can do that if they want to. But fifty euros is regarded as a standard sort of cost to see a doctor.

If you are unemployed or on benefits, you can obtain a wonderful thing called a medical card, which means you will not have to pay fifty euros to see a doctor. If you have a job, regardless of other circumstances, regardless of the fact that you have three children under ten, you will, in general, pay fifty euros for each and every visit to a GP.

So the first child starts to leak bodily fluids on Monday – off to the doctor to provide your first donation. Ten minutes to get a prescription and hand over the money, then off to the chemist to pick up the medicine and hand over another twenty.

Because children are inherently contagious, the second little bugger has come down with the same thing within twenty four hours. Back to hand over another fifty and pick up another prescription and exchange it in turn for another twenty. This is fun. Guess what happens next? With relentless inevitability, the third, feeling left out, runs a fever that gives the kettle a run for its money and off you go again. Hurrah. Two hundred and ten euros.
Funnily enough, when you get sick yourself you decide you’ll self-medicate. Possibly with arsenic. From the Journal of the Bleedin’ Obvious comes research that indicates these charges can put people off seeking medical advice.

A few years ago I was back in my old country and I went to the doctor. I didn’t bring cash with me. At the end, the nice gentleman asked me for fifty euros or so – I explained just as politely that I only had a card and that more to the point would be leaving on a jet plane that very day with the distinct intention of not returning for some time. He was suitably baffled. There was no cash point nearby and he did not take cards. I did have about thirty euros in my pockets and foolishly confessed as much. He agreed, with what I think was embarrassment for me and my faux pas, that this would just have to do under the circumstances.

There is an argument that it could be worse, that it could be America. This is true. You will not die in Atlantis because you cannot afford a much-needed operation. On the other hand, you might die of old age waiting for a hospital bed, because the Irish health system has many things, but it does not have hospital beds.

I’ve told you about going to a GP, now let me tell you how hospitals work.

They don’t.

In promising news, hospital treatment tends to be relatively affordable. From this article comes the line: “Everyone living in the country, and visitors to Ireland who hold a European Health Insurance Card, are entitled to free maintenance and treatment in public beds in Health Service Executive and voluntary hospitals.”

Or they would if there were beds. But the national bed crisis shows no sign of letting up. This article casually references the endless saga of how many people exactly were ‘waiting on trolleys’ quite recently (Four hundred each day, for those trying to postpone RSI). Although I’m not certain, I believe they were physically on the trolleys in question during their wait. When things are busy, people also wait for trolleys. On chairs. For hours. There are stories of waiting for chairs too, but if I get into that, I fear people are going to mistake this for satire. You see, this isn’t a Monty Python sketch. This is a country’s health service, relied on by people when they’re ill.

As a result of all this I love the NHS. Seriously. I would pledge allegiance to the NHS any old day of the week. If they make up a song about the NHS, I will dutifully stand to attention and sing, although I cannot promise it will be in tune. And no one has ever made me stand up even close to an anthem without enduring my near-endless whining. But for the NHS I think I could do it.

 Having come from its mathematical opposite – a place so afraid of a non-existent Red Menace that a pitiful attempt to introduce free healthcare for children in the fifties was condemned as Socialist Medicine and quashed by the bishops – I am permanently amazed at the thought of a world where we can all just go to the doctor when we’re sick. Even if the day we happen to be sick is the day before payday. We don’t have to decide between getting that thing checked out and paying the gas bill this week. It’s been eight years and I still think this is bloody great.

After the second world war, the US and the Soviet union chose to invest in the space race. It pushed the boundaries of what we thought we could achieve. It went to the moon.  Britain did something different but no less extraordinary; something as unimaginable, as aspirational and inspirational. Britain chose national health care, free at point of service. If you have never known anything else, you will never understand what that means. I hope you never do.

The author of the report ‘has been armed with devastating research
findings’ which sounded initially encouraging. When preparing to take action, it
is nice, if somewhat unusual, to begin with some research. Upon
reading to the end of the sentence, I was disappointed if not
surprised to discover that the devastating research ‘showed parents
are very worried.’

I often conduct that sort of research in the pub. I have made all
sorts of exciting discoveries about what people think  during such research, but my research has
usually been dismissed by those of a Ben Goldacre persuasion as
constituting ‘anecdote’ rather than ‘evidence.’

40% of parents had seen things that they believed were inappropriate
for children, I learned today. They had seen such things in shops and
on television. I for one am shocked. If parents have seen things in
shops and on television that are inappropriate for children then there
is something fundamentally wrong with both shops and television. And
we must Do Something.

First of all I suppose we’ll need to deal with the news.

The circus-level hysteria about a man recently having been revealed to
have had sex aside, there has been quite a lot in the news this year
that one might need to moderate if the sensitivities of children are
to be guarded. Frankly, the news has been full of horrors all year,
and I for one have seen and heard things on it that were inappropriate
for me, never mind children. And yet I am concerned that its effect on
western children’s delicate psyches is not top of this report’s
priorities.

It is as though we believe that children cannot be disturbed by
thousands of people killed in natural disasters, by nuclear threats,
by tales of thirteen year olds being tortured, mutilated and killed in
Syria, by a man setting himself on fire, or by war, or by massacre, or
by scenes of abuse in care homes. It’s either as though we believe that this
sort of knowledge couldn’t ever affect childhood, or that if it does,  that it is
the role of parents to moderate what their children access, according
to what they believe their own children can handle.

In fact, you’d nearly believe that the news is for adults, despite
being on before the watershed, and that part of parenting is to make
decisions about what your children access and take responsibility when
it comes to enforcing this.

What madness is this?

We take a much more rational and sensible approach with sexual
content. It is a fundamental tenant of all human knowledge that if children
gained insight into human mating rituals they would be irrevocably
scarred for life. And if children are somehow – say, by having
televisions or computers in their own room – gaining access to such
information, then we as a society must police this material more
rigorously.

Because it’s important that children grow up protected carefully sexual scenes in music videos or soap operas, while relying on the tender care of their parents to protect them from the brutal facts of violence and horror happening in the world on any given day.

Perhaps there really is devastating research that shows this is an
appropriate way to deal with children and unsuitable subjects. If
there is, someone should probably publish it.

But I fear that problematic content does not only feature on TVs and
in shops. I fear it might be an aspect of life. I worry that if they
really keep their eyes open, the same parents may be able to observe
things on the streets that are unsuitable for their children. They may see
me smoking or hearing me wildly cursing the unspeakable stupidity that
passes for the news. They may hear people having inappropriate
conversations about sex or violence, or, even more offensively,
talking about the government. I presume the report on that will be out by Christmas.

Where I grew up the priest was also king, Ms Dorries. We had an elected parliament with a lower house and an upper house, as in many democracies, and we also had the archbishop’s palace. Bills were taken to the archbishop’s palace before they were brought to parliament, and any that went to parliament without the support of the church were unlikely to pass.

I could pick almost any topic to illustrate this, but it seems salient to discuss reproductive rights, because it is somehow in the news. This makes me feel as though I am now the proud owner of my very own tardis, and have accidentally set the controls to the dark ages in Ireland, back when I was growing up.

For the record, I do not need to be here.

Let us begin with some catechism, which is where legal matters in my country often find their origin. The Catholic Church believes that sex should only occur between two married heterosexual people, and that its purpose is procreation. If you find this in any way hard to remember, there is a nifty slogan, ‘procreation, not recreation!’ which may help.

Flowing naturally from this starting point, in a ‘therefore my cat is a dog’ sort of way, contraception was illegal in Ireland from 1935 until 1980. To put it another way, contraception was illegal in Ireland when I was born.

Of course that did not mean it was unobtainable or went unobtained. There was a long history of importing banned objects from the other side of the Northern Irish  border. Books were common; contraception likewise. In 1971, a feminist group called the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement, produced a beautiful piece of situationalist protest when they returned publicly from Belfast waving for press attention the contraceptives that normally crossed the border illegally and in secret. But throughout the sixties and the seventies, Ireland existed within its own strange moral plane, in which contraception was something only required by the sort of people who lived in other countries. As ever, the educated and the well-off found ways around such restrictions; those without resources birthed children until they died.

In 1978, the government of the day introduced a bill to legalise contraception for bona fide family planning. This meant that contraception could be prescribed by a doctor. Generally remembered as being only permissible for married couples, the bill did not specifically stipulate this, but the prevailing moral climate ensured few general practitioners would have written such a prescription for a single woman. It was passed by elected representatives of the people despite the opposition of the bishops, which was a new and exciting development in Irish parliamentary history.

And so I grew up in a country where contraception was technically legal but deeply controversial.  Sex education did not happen, although I was once taught by a particularly odd nun that homosexuality and abortion were mortal sins. I can assure you that no child in Ireland every learned to put a condom on a banana. Those were the days when letters pages in the more adventurous teen magazines cautioned against attempting to use mars bar wrappers as a contraceptive due to their high rate of failure. Sex education always sounded as though it would probably be a good idea.

I could get on to abortion, but it seems like a topic for a whole other day. Suffice to say, we relied upon and continued to rely upon Britain for that sort of thing.

In the past year, someone correctly identified me as being Irish and asked whether I came from a large family. It’s a cliché that survives. There is nothing in the air or the soil of Ireland that leads to large families; I am quite sure of that. What I have never been sure of is whether there is something innate in religion, forcing it to believe that the ills of society will best be served by legislating its own brand of theocracy for the benefit of all.

Where I grew up the priest was also king, Ms Dorries. But the church did not withdraw. Let us be very clear about that. Great seats of unelected power rarely withdraw. It disgraced itself, not only through its myriad scandals but through its insistence on attempting to maintain a monopoly on morality, while it mainlined misogyny and homophobia. The church did not withdraw. It was fought. It was fought by those who countered  ‘procreation not recreation’ with ‘get your rosaries off our ovaries.’ Those are the songs of my childhood.

I’d really like to leave them there.

And isn’t it refreshing to see the great wave of public outrage against this infringement of press freedom? The rising power of social media has led the charge against these byzantine legal subterfuges employed by people wanting ‘privacy.’ As a wave of democracy tries to sweep the globe, so the people of Britain are rising up on twitter and in the football terraces, in zealous defence of freedom of information. For what democracy could function properly without knowing what lies behind these superinjunctions?

All of which utter nonsense helps to distract from the fact that what we’re so ardently defending is our right to read about people having sex.

Shouting about superinjunctions helps obfuscate this. It can be hard to sound reasonable while screeching that not being allowed to read about other people having sex violates your human rights. Superinjunctions, however, are the new masked foe of press freedom, which all reasonable people can take sides against.

It’s their own fault for going to such lengths to hush it up, I heard someone clarify yesterday. How dare anyone attempt to prevent their private life be sold by a parasitic press to a mindless public. How stupid of them to taunt that press with an unavailable story and how ridiculous of them to complain when a relentless press is supported by a public in search of puerile bullshit to feed their self-righteous appetites.

The truly nasty thing in all of this the genuine sense of ownership perfectly normal people seem to feel about a stranger’s life. It is our right to know, our right to judge, our right to publish, and our right to read. Our right to talk bollocks about it for hours as though it mattered, as though it was our business, and as though we had any fucking idea what any of it was about. And our right, as a society, to feel outrage at the idea that those people might try to deny us our insidiously petty demands to access ever prurient detail of their private lives.

But what about the rights of the poor individual who wanted to sell their story to the tabloid press, I hear you ask, if you are an idiot? For you I have no answer, other than that I strongly believe you should get your own press, made up of publications in which pointless stories about consenting adults’ private lives can be exchanged for attention. You could call them things like ‘Hello magazine.’ And then maybe the rest of the media could get back to the news.

Mr Cameron yesterday spoke of his determination to defend the rights of ordinary hard-working families to enjoy this special day and of his deep disappointment at those who wished spoil the day by being mean about it, or, in some cases, even protesting against it.

“What these extremists don’t seem to understand is that ordinary people are struggling as this government repeals the welfare state and slashes jobs, or as we like to call it, ‘cleaning up Labour’s mess’. Because we have had to use napalm to clean the mess, a lot of people are getting very badly hurt of course, and what these people – people whose lives are falling apart – need in order to feel better is a big party to which they aren’t invited.

Do these protesters not realize how many people have lost their jobs over the last six months? This is a very hard time for people, and the only thing that will keep some going, as they adjust to loss of earnings and battle to keep their homes, is the sight of institutionalized extravagance being celebrated.

While I will never attempt to politicize a day of this importance, I think it’s worth taking a moment to appreciate the diversity this important day celebrates. A simple millionaire’s daughter marrying a member of royal family is the sort of diversity that this government has always and will continue to champion. For those with concerns about social mobility in this country, I think this is a very important landmark.

There have been some – radicals and extremists, of course – who have suggested that this government has a fundamental bias against welfare scroungers.  This wedding is a chance for us to prove them wrong – we are very much in favour of obscenely rich welfare scroungers like the Royal Family. I think the phenomenal amount of fuss we’ve generated out of one of them getting married shows the left’s lies as just that. However, I do not want this day to be dragged into the political, because this day is about ordinary people and the ordinary communities.

And since the Big Society comes without batteries included, for now we need things like the royal wedding to bring communities together, as the commoners alternate between discussing Kate’s dress and whether she’s lost weight. This distracts people from the fact that they can’t afford new clothes for themselves, and encourages them to run up the personal debt that might help save the high street despite our disastrous economic policies. But it’s more than that, more than simply about unaffordable and offensive aspiration – the important thing for ordinary people to remember is that wedding paraphernalia is the pressing issue of the day. We must keep this up front and centre, or people will start to wonder what we’re really going to do with the NHS.

But most of all, this is an important day of national unity during what we all know are difficult times, because while some of us will actually be going to the party, everyone else should be watching it on TV, supporting the economy by buying souvenir tat and remembering that we’re all in it together.”

Mr Clegg was unavailable for comment.

At an environmental protest camp in the west of Ireland, two young female protesters were arrested. Their video camera was also arrested. Because the video camera was still switched on, it captured the ensuing comedy stylings of these professional guardians of the peace as they joked back and forth about raping the two women. The transcript of the pilot for the Father Ted-esque sitcom can be found here.  

Unidentified garda: “Sounds like a Yank or Canadian.”

Garda B: “Well whoever, we’ll get Immigration f**king on her.”

Garda A: “She refused to give her name and address and told she would be arrested.”

Garda B : “…….and deported”

Garda A: “And raped.”

Garda B: “I wouldn’t go that far yet….. She was living down at that crusty camp, f**k sake, you never know what you might get.”

(Laughter) 

Garda A: “Give me your name and address or I’ll rape you.”

(Laughter) 

Unidentified garda: “Hold it there, give me your name and address there, I’ll rape you.”

(Laughter) 

Garda A : “Or I’ll definitely rape you.”

Unidentified garda: “Will you be me friend on Facebook?”

Now, before you become enflamed with righteous rage, the thing to remember is that this was harmless banter. It was mates having a laugh and telling funny, funny jokes.

This, from what I can gather, has been a significant contribution to the ensuing debate about standards one might expect from police, about violence to women, about whether we take rape seriously. Lots of people whinging that ‘they were just having a laugh.’

Sure they were. Frustrated stand-up comics, both of them. And the material! It’s almost as funny as Frankie Boyle. No, that’s not fair. I’m going to try to be fair.  It’s funny like Beavis and Butthead. In fact, if I really put my prejudice aside and try to objectively evaluate its comic potential, I am forced to admit that it’s probably almost as funny as Abu Ghraib.

 If we were to become so politically correct as to outlaw such simple, innocent office banter, that’s the sort of comic genius that would be lost to future generations. If you’re honestly going to tell me I can’t have a laugh about raping people, where will you go next? Tell me I can’t joke with blindfolded prisoners that they’ll be electrocuted if they step off the box? Oh, the hilarity of punching the powerless; where would frustrated, inadequate little wankers be without it?

But outside of the comic merits or demerits of their script is the context of the conversation. Two policemen joking about raping two women they have just arrested does not send a message that rape is taken particularly seriously as a crime. Mind you, prosecution stats provide enough evidence of that without the puerile soundtrack of two gobshites revealing themselves in all their troglodyte glory.

The exact format has not been confirmed, but Simon Cowell has made it clear that the changes will be big and the music will be gone.

“It wouldn’t really be appropriate, would it? Making people sing and dance for a university education? We’re not savages.”

Unnamed sources have indicated that students will compete in events according to their course of choice -  so aspiring law students will try to argue their way out of life imprisonment, science students will build biological and chemical weapons to defeat their opponents, and medical students will perform an operation on each week’s evictee.

“Dentistry, medicine and veterinary science are all popular aspirations for the ambitious, and these will make for great TV,” said Cowell. “Who’ll survive unmaimed? The viewers will help decide!”

Last student standing will win a full and free degree in a university of their choice.

The Prime Minister was asked what he thought of the new style show and its role in the university system.

“This is exactly what the country needs right now,” said Mr Cameron. “Real entrepreneurial spirit in the face of certain annihilation. What we want to see is people making – or at least generating -  money while their futures are sold out from under them. I think watching these young people fighting to the death for a place in education will really show the world what Britain is about now- this is the Big Society in work, right here! And we must not forget how much money it will make.”

“The show had to go somewhere more interesting after all the years of Journey covers and those endless fucking ballads,” admitted Simon Cowell. “And let’s face it, it was never so much about music as it was about publicly mocking and exploiting those who wanted to make something of themselves despite their often limited talent. I think that really sums up university education in this country today. This will take the show into a bright and modern Britain – and open it up to a whole new audience demographic!”

Cowell denied that he was jumping on a bandwagon created by Jamie Oliver’s recently screened ‘Dream School.’

“We’re not trying to change universities or raise standards or any of that nonsense. This isn’t a project, it’s a TV show and it will ultimately be the same X-Factor as ever. We won’t make anything better – we’ll just wave an opportunity in front of desperate people and make money out of seeing how high they jump.”

The judging panel for the new season has not yet been confirmed, and unnamed senior minister told us today that he would consider the opportunity if asked.

“I’ve never been a big fan of the X-Factor,” he admitted. “I prefer music, to be honest. But this new format gives people like Susan Boyle a chance to do something they’d never have dreamt of in this country – get an education. For all those young people out there facing a decade of certain unemployment and the removal of all state support as well as anything resembling hope, this show is a wonderful opportunity.”

There have been those who have suggested that an education should be available to more than one person a year, and a few unreconstructed traditionalists have argued that such an opportunity should be based on exams and knowledge and not simply contingent on winning a game show. But even the most ardent critics have found room to rejoice in the undeniably good news that this year we won’t have to listen to one more fuckwit trying to warble a twenty five minute Mariah Carey number.

There has been no official comment on the speculation that the show’s format will be updated annually to reflect further changes in Britain’s situation, with rumours running rife that next year’s contestants will compete for the life-saving hospital treatment of their choice.

A woman intending to have an abortion will be required to have counselling. By this I am not shocked. I wish I could be, but it’s been a long year and my usual reserves of political indignation are running frighteningly low. Patriarchal interference in women’s reproductive decisions seems more like a logical next step at this stage than something that might shock. But their explanation for the proposal is worth paying some attention to.

According to Miss Dorries, the current system means that women receive advice on terminations from a “remote abortion provider, with a vested interest”.

This proposition is an amendment to the Health and Social Care Bill – a bill that will radically change the way health care is commissioned in this country. It will open the door for all sorts of remote health providers, who some believe will have invested interests since they will make, you know, money.

The reasoning behind the amendment creates a powerful precedent – because the reason for compulsory counselling isn’t, of course, that women are raving hormonal loons who can’t be trusted to make decisions about their health or their bodies. The reasons being given for this are not even a shiny new chorus of ‘won’t somebody please think of the children.’ No, the reason for this is that an organisation with a vested interest cannot be trusted to make medical decisions.

So here are the options:

a) Dorries and Fields are weird, cowardly little creeps who actually want to make ‘impartial’ counselling compulsory before a woman has an abortion for other reasons that they are afraid to say out loud.

b) ‘Impartial counselling’ is an important measure that must be addressed whenever patients receive advice or treatment from a body that might have a vested interest.

Since there’s no way this is a sly measure to control women’s bodies and choices while making it sound as though it is designed to protect vulnerable women at one of the more difficult times of their lives, it must be (b).

So when private interests are commissioned to treat patients, we will each need counselling first, which will help us come to terms with our health and their decisions. After all, before taking antibiotics, some counselling will reassure us that the provider chosen by the consortium does have our chest infection’s best interest at heart. If I’m told I need my appendix out, I will of course require counselling first – after all, they have an invested interest, and it’s possible I could have gone for months without the thing exploding.

There’s really only one thing that confuses me about this. What if they tell me I need counselling? Will I have to have counselling before a third party health care provider with an invested interest tells me I need counselling? Since this government is fast making me lose my mind, I may need an answer to that one quickly.