Safe pair of hands at first slip
Fresh from his announcement that World War One was actually a masterpiece of military planning, Education Secretary Michael Gove has now claimed that the Ashes tour was a ‘triumph’ for the England team.
“Left-wing defeatist commentators are trying to spread the myth that the Ashes tour was some sort of shambles, with under-prepared men sent to certain disaster by an out-of-touch elite,” he snarled this morning. “But let me tell you that good historians, such as myself, see the hostilities as necessary, and a price worth paying to show the Australians very clearly who’s the boss.”
“The tour was, of course, an unspeakable tragedy, which robbed this nation of our bravest and best cricketers. But even as we recall that loss and commemorate the bravery of those who threw their wickets away, it’s important that we don’t succumb to some of the myths which have grown up about the conflict. To portray the catastrophe as anything other than avoidable is to talk nonsense, and I should know. Johnny Oz knows what we’re made of now, and there won’t be too many in their team celebrating right now, or I’m a Dutchman.”
Mr Gove turned his fire on “Left-wing academics all too happy to feed those myths by attacking Britain’s role in the hostilities”.
“These commies like Geoff ‘Che’ Boycott – it’s easy to criticise, and say your mother could do better, and very likely she could. But that’s to miss the point entirely, as I hope I’m making clear.”
Mr Gove, who has kindly rewritten the school history curriculum to give pupils a better grasp of the broad sweep of British history, reserves his greatest scorn for those who have sought to depict the team as ‘lions led by donkeys’. “On the contrary,” he insisted, “They are donkeys led by donkeys.”
“The past has never had a better future,” he summed-up. “And the future has never had a better past. What does that mean? I don’t know. Makes you proud. Mind you, that World War One, now that was a disaster.”
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