As imagined by Brian Beacom

LOOK chaps, what’s the blinking fuss about? All I happened to say this week was that Mrs Thatcher had given Scotland a helping hand by closing down the coal mines. What was wrong with that?

Okay, there’s a little joke in there that Mrs T wasn’t being entirely prescient in setting a drive towards the removal of fossil fuels. Indeed, climate change hadn’t really been invented in the mid-Eighties.

Okay, yes, you may say that entire communities were wrecked, that generations of jobs lost, that people were thrown onto the dole as easily as they once threw a large coal lump onto the fire of their tiny, damp-ridden council house in Fife or whatever.

But surely her point was well made? Coal mining is a beastly job and no doubt jolly sore on the back. And as for the dirt under the fingernails? Well, incredibly difficult to shift if you ask me, so, yes, shutting those hell holes was, for so many a godsend.

And think of this, if you will; who’s to say this so-called tragedy didn’t prompt those speccy twins The Proclaimers to come up with their jolly good lost industry song Letter From America? And didn’t the closure of the mines in the north east of England provide a wonderful little sub-plot for Billy Elliott? Think Scotland: if Mrs T hadn’t intervened, would Elton have come up with such a spiffing musical?

As you know, I once said of Banksy that I like his wall stuff, he’s a very good artist. But at some point, someone will have to slap some Dulux exterior emulsion over it. It’s called progress.

Now, you may say I’m an out-and-out-Thatcherite Doberman, ready to rip the financial heart of society right out, for the sake of saving a few bob. But it’s not true. I’m not nicknamed The Shopping Trolley by Traitor Dom for nothing. Counting is not my strong point at all. I couldn’t even tell you how many kids I’ve got.

It’s Sunak who runs with all that monetarist strategy stuff. The truth is he’s as tight as Nicola’s lips when ‘sooking a soor ploom’. I believe, I’m using the proper Scottish idiom, my friend?

Speaking of your First Minister, and my refusal to meet with her, can you blame me? Since I became PM she’s given me more slaps on the a*** that I took while fagging at Eton.

I’ve taken more nips from Nicola than from Dilyn, over sleaze, alleged corruption, cronyism, the usual things we get up to, allegedly. And he’s been a bit of a mad dog at times.

So, I won’t be lectured about competence from a political leader who spends exorbitant sums on ferries without getting guarantees on delivery. Is it true her karaoke song is now Shirley’s Hey Big Spender?

Anyway, how can we talk about a shared recovery strategy when she wants to cover old ground about Scotland pulling out of the union. I’ve never been one to consider pulling out. Ask Carrie.