THE mystic dug has been staring into his water bowl and has seen some optimistic visions of what is ahead for us in 2020. It’s either that, or it’s a piece of soggy dog biscuit floating in the water. Admittedly this is easy to confuse with Boris Johnson.
January
IAIN Duncan Smith falls victim to a tragic sword accident in the knighthood ceremony and is forced to apply for universal credit as he’s been financially ruined by the cost of getting blood stains out of the Queen’s priceless Persian rugs.
He’s found fit for work even though he’s now merely a disembodied head and is sanctioned because he’s five minutes late for his first appointment after the plastic supermarket bag he’s being carried in bursts. Sir Iain is no longer serene. The Job Centre informs him that there’s a vacancy for a bowling ball in a leisure centre in Woking.
READ MORE: Wee Ginger Dugcast: Independence, Brexit & Honeymoons
February
THE UK has finally left the EU. Boris Johnson makes an address to the nation to prove his populist credentials by misquoting some text in poorly pronounced Ancient Greek. Leavers’ plans to celebrate the occasion with street parties go awry after someone accidentally orders chorizo sausage rolls and French cheese. Faced with the realisation that it’s no longer possible to remain in both the EU and the UK, support for independence soars. Boris Johnson refuses to cooperate with a Section 30 order. The Scottish Government replies saying, “Aye. Right.” Boris Johnson thinks they’re agreeing with him, proving that he’s nowhere near the linguist that his acolytes think he is.
March
THE Alex Salmond trial begins. The Scottish media works itself up into a frothing frantic frenzy of SNPbaddery. No-one notices the difference. Support for independence continues to rise because Brexit and Boris Johnson still haven’t gone away.
April
THERE’S an episode of BBC Question Time from Dundee which doesn’t feature a crazed gammonista planted in the audience or a panel packed with Tories. Instead there’s a polite and reasonable debate between grown ups who actually appear to come from Dundee. The Daily Mail calls for a public inquiry.
May
THERE’S an entire period of 10 minutes on Twitter when no one is outraged by anything. It’s hailed as a miracle. Unfortunately, it doesn’t last as a Brexit voter from Sidcup announces that he’s suing Sainsbury's for selling gammon steaks as he believes this counts as incitement to racial hatred, and there’s the biggest Twitter pile on since a silk kimono-wearing lawyer battered wildlife to death with a cricket bat. An LBC radio phone-in asking listeners to call in and describe what cross-dressing item of clothing they were wearing while battering wildlife to death with a piece of sporting equipment proves to be the shortest show ever.
June
SNP Health Minister Jeane Freeman announces that for the past few years she’s secretly been working away in her garden shed in the evenings and at weekends and has discovered a cure for cancer. With a simple pill, cancer will be gone within 24 hours. The Scottish media immediately demand her resignation for not concentrating on the day job and for causing the closure of treatment centres across the country. The BBC send an investigative reporter to the garden centre where the shed was bought and demand to know if staff are ashamed of themselves.
July
THE Labour Party branch office in Scotland announces the result of its review of what went wrong in the 2019 General Election. The solution that they have come up with is to continue to do everything that they were doing before, only more loudly and with even less distracting wit or charisma. Richard Leonard stands down as branch office manager and is replaced by a concrete bollard that sits outside Holyrood. This move is immediately hailed as a great success by the Scottish media and the concrete bollard is touted as the great saviour of the Union, because at least you notice that it exists and it has a position that people can understand.
READ MORE: Scotland in the Union has a safeword ... it’s indyref2
August
THE Scottish Court of Session rules that a consultative referendum without a Section 30 order is perfectly legal as it remains for Westminster to decide what action to take on the result. The SNP issues a press statement for all the media hacks and British nationalist parties who have spent the last year describing such a referendum as unlawful saying “Ha. And indeed, ha ha.” Since there’s going to be a referendum anyway, Boris Johnson finally consents to a Section 30 order as it’s the only hope in hell that the anti-independence parties have of persuading the Scottish public that the UK is in fact a union and not a prison camp.
September
A GROUP of celebrities issue a statement begging Scotland to stay in the UK because some of them have been to the Highlands on holiday and it was very pretty there. They’re interviewed by the BBC because if you’re a London-based celeb, a weekend in Oban makes you an expert on Scottish politics. In an impassioned interview, Ben Fogle tells the BBC reporter that he has a deep connection to Scotland because he thinks he’s a mountain in Wester Ross.
October
AIDED by a think tank that sounds like a knitwear shop, anti-independence campaigners publish a graph that shows that an independent Scotland would be poorer than mediaeval Transylvania during the plague. Only without the vampires, as they’d have moved to the rUK in order to contest safe Conservative seats in the Commons.
November
THE independence referendum takes place. Faced with a UK that’s outside the EU and which has made absolutely zero progress on negotiating a trade deal, a rampant right-wing British nationalist xenophobia, and spot fines for anyone not wearing a poppy, there’s a massive surge in support for independence. The only people now not supporting independence are members of a flute band in Livingstone who are still holding out for tickets to BBC Question Time, and a guy on Twitter who has some graphs he’d like you to look at. Scotland votes to become a normal country.
December
THE UK begs the EU for an extension to the negotiation period. Boris Johnson blames opposition MPs, his rescue dog, the weather, and tells the Queen some lies to put in her Christmas Day address. Nigel Farage is given a peerage in the New Year’s Honours List. Katie Hopkins gets an MBE for services to normalising racism. No one in Scotland cares because none of this is our problem any more.
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