by our Political Correspondent Inna Klusta-Fūkkè
Unprecedented Times
"I've never seen anything like it in my life"; "It's a complete shambols"; "It can't go on like this"; "Piss-up, organise, brewery can't a", "He/she/it/they has/have to go"; "Makes opposition leader Piers Royale look charismatic and competent"; "How do you damage limit complete armaggedon". These and similar phrases are just some of the comments that [speaking off the record] many senior members of the DHRA are briefing to journalists currently circulating around the barely-twitching corpse of the current DHRA Ways and Means Committee and particularly Committee Chair Ms Blitz Alltrust. Ms Alltrust who has been PM [Photocopying Monitor] for almost 3 days, has, according to close admirers as well as critics, "not so much lost as irretrievably exploded the plot".
Dizzying Days
In the space of just two weeks the powerful Ways and Means Committee has had an unprecedented 4 pencil monitors, 2 paper stackers, 3 toner assisatnts, 5 [aptly named] eraser acquirers and 8 junior pencil-sharpener advisors in what has become a circus of hirings, firings, resignations and high-profile walkouts. In a further blow this morning, Chief Advisor to the Inkwell-Facilities Procurement Secretary - Sir Fontayne Penn - tore up previous plans to reduce the levy on filling up a Mont Blanc, refused to guarantee a previous promise to freeze all photocopying costs and did not rule out significant increases in the already eye-watering 36% tax on pencil sharpening. "Everything is on the table", he said before adding that, by the end of the week, there might not even be a table. "It's a very nice 1940s regency copy and might be worth a bob or two", he quipped, in a rare moment of levity. Reports of a sighting of a Man and a Van [parked outside the DHRA and "prepared for some heavy lifting"] were quickly denied by long-serving doorman and ex RDC Enforcement Officer, Mr Tern Styles.
Autumn of Discontent
Amidst the ongoing doom and gloom and facing annihilation at the next Annual Assembly, members of the ruling DHRA Continuity Party are prepared to admit privately that the game is up. "We are facing annihilation at the next Annual Assembly", one said "and its a question of when rather than if we go down and how many hands will still be on Dec".*
* a reference to the DHRA's popular acquisitions cataloguer Anton "Declan" Rice-Crispie.
Another insider admitted that Ms Blitz Alltrust's news conference which it was hoped would settle nerves, calm the membership and stop the freefall in the value of Autumn Fair tickets had seriously backfired when the PM made a mumbled 24 second defence of her previous strategy before bursting into tears and refusing to answer questions from the press.
What Next?
With her policy of slashing the cost of book borrowing whilst offering free paperclips to member's relatives now in tatters, following a "Fifth revised, retracted, redrafted, reconfigured, 180 degree adjustment Autumn mini-statement" from new Association Treasurer [and de facto CEO] Jermyn Hunt-Ball, questions are being asked about what is left of Ms Alltrust's election manifesto and whether she is still in charge. "Questions are being asked about what is left of Ms Alltrust's election manifesto and whether she is still in charge", says the Dorset Broacating Corporation's veteran DHRA watcher Intalye Berrylone. At a closed meeting of the Ways and Means Committee yesterday the PM had watched silently as Mr Hunt-Ball gleefully shredded her predecessor's identity card.
Though it is now clear to everyone except Ms Alltrust that the game is well and truly up, the PM shows no signs of stepping down and may even have been emboldened by comments from former DHRA Top Shelf Magazine's Advisor and the last PM bar four supporter, Nadine Loose-Cannon who told reporters that "It's important to keep fighting battles we have already lost in the hope that no-one will notice the battles we are still fighting. I belive that we should bring back Mrs Endersely-Kindersley who not only had a mandate from the public but also a willingness to give me a job when nobody else would".
The ruling party will be hoping this morning that with the general public in general dispair and its electoral fortunes slipping into quiet but inevitable implosion, a period of calm will ensue. It seems unlikely and those close the the Association believe further turbulence is inevitable. Influential Chair of the 1984 Committee Sir Ian Mores-Murdurah says "Everyone agrees she is hopeless, incompetent, inept, unappealing, clueless and broken, but the problem remains that there is no clear mechanism [short of hemlock] for getting rid of her and no agreement as to who might succeed".
Watch This Space
This is a fast moving story which will be continuously updated by our fast moving ear-to-the-ground, correspondents ...
Latest: PM says she will "almost definitley" lead party in to next General Assembly
Everyone else says: "No she won't".
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