This is an excerpt from the debate I hosted between Richard Littlejohn and Polly Toynbee on a well known, highly-respected and thoroughly unbiased media outlet. Have a look; just in case you, by any strange chance, managed to miss it.
Littlejohn:
No, I’m serious Polly, really Polly, this has gone too far. It was one thing when public money was being diverted into groups for gay Peruvian mountain climbers and genderqueer limbo-dancers from Sardinia…
Yes, I was even prepared to put up with it, for the sake of the peace, when there was the odd bit of hard-working taxpayers’ money going to assist lesbian Scandinavian Latin archivists with bowel problems. But now, I open the paper this morning, and what do I see?
Toynbee:
Oh do shut up, no, really, I’m beyond caring, Richard. You’re entirely distorting the issues. None of these groups exist.
Yes, you’re constructing a hegemonic semiotic narrative, in accordance with a dubious Wittgensteinian language game that normal, decent people such as…
Littlejohn:
Well, I have the evidence! Look it up in your own time!
And anyway, the moment we start shelling out taxpayer’s money for ultraviolet Trans-Sogdian Pan-Akkadian origami massage therapy for bi-curious former dissident Tibetan monks…
Who, by the way, belong to a sub-sect making up only 1.2% of the hardly voluminous Gelugpa sect, who are mainly found in one single autonomous region of the People’s Republic of China…
Monks who, in order to qualify, must be ginger-haired, vegan wheelchair users with asthma, a dodgy leg and a touch of long-term and sufficiently severe insomnia that impacts severely enough on their daily lives to…
Well, to just about prevent them from claiming their welfare benefits in person or fitting their own Sky TV box themselves…
Toynbee:
Oh do shut up, no, really, I’m beyond caring, Richard. You’re entirely distorting the issues. None of these groups exist.
Yes, you’re constructing a hegemonic semiotic narrative, in accordance with a dubious Wittgensteinian language game that normal, decent people such as… Well… We just won’t agree, I’m afraid! Harrumph!
Richard:
Well you’re not far off the mark there, Polly! You’re right, we won’t agree, you are absolutely right about that,
Toynbee:
You are 100% correct… oh. Oh, God!
Toynbee:
That’s right, indeed… But oh! Oh, really, oh dear! Oh, now… I see what we just did there.
Richard:
You telling me? Urgh! I’ve just agreed with Polly Toynbee! My career is ruined! Urgh! Yuck! I can’t believe I’ve brought this on myself! After all these years! I’m disgusted with myself! I don’t want to even think about… Oh, God!
Oh, God! I mean, this is worse than that time Ed Miliband tried to take a selfie with me at the idiotic Trot demonstration when I was trying to grab a good, honest, city sarnie in Pret… Sorry sorry, I mean, a less lefty one, let’s say Starbucks..
Toynbee:
Oh, really, oh, what a pity, I’m going to have to find a new career too. Imagine having the slightest modicum of common ground with Richard Littlejohn! Really!
Oh dear! I simply can’t bear it! We said we were in total agreement, did we not?… Oh dear, really!
Richard:
Well, you think you’ve got problems? God! I can’t believe it! My reputation is finally ruined!
Please don’t worry. I can assure you all that despite this setback, Richard and Polly will be back soon to give you their opinions on How To fix Broken Britain,™ and How To Rebuild The Unrebuildable Wreckage Wreaked By The Unaccountable and Unelected Con-Dem Coalition.™
Still, can’t believe I found these two journalists agreeing on something though; you just couldn’t make it up, could you?
Oh, and one last word from Polly:
“Actually, dear interviewer, you just did.”
Oh, wait and Richard too?
“No, he bloody well didn’t, Polly!”
Well… let’s not go down that road.
Image attribution:
By Chatham House – Polly Toynbee, CC BY 2.0, Link
Originally published on The Spoof.