Apparently, one of the major issues in Thursday’s local elections was potholes. The Daily Mail, always with its finger on the pulse of the national heartbeat, published a story on 17th January under the headline “The Holes In Our Roads“. It went like this:
“There are 4,000 holes in the road in Blackburn, Lancashire, or one twenty-sixth of a hole per person, according to a council survey. If Blackburn is typical, there are two million holes in Britain’s roads and 300,000 in London.”
Staggering numbers, I’m sure you agree and you can understand why the Mail’s permanently angry, elderly readers are calling for Keir Starmer’s public execution. “We never had potholes when I was young,” fumed Elsie Sproggett (75), glancing across the front page. “Now they’re everywhere. I blame the woke generation, snowflakes every single one. Let’s give Nigel Farage a go. It’s time we tried fascism. We should have listened to the Daily Mail before the last world war. They were big fans of Hitler.”
Elsie, I hasten to add, is not her real name. She’s not a real person. In fact, she is every Mail reader wrapped into one, wistfully looking back to a world that never existed, where everyone looked out for each other, not needing to shut their front doors and if you needed your chimney sweeping, you could simply call on a spotty young urchin who would carry out the job in order to avoid getting a sound beating. Ah, the good old days indeed. The Mail report is absolutely true. The only thing is that this was a Mail headline on 17th January 1967 and it was the inspiration for the Beatles’ A Day In The Life.
You see, the genius that was John Lennon was looking at the Mail and saw the story about there being 4000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire and, with the assistance of his fellow genius pal Paul McCartney, wrote one of the greatest songs in the history of music. Lennon sadly omitted the likelihood of there being “two million holes In Britain’s roads and 300,000 in London“. (Macca wrote a song called Fixing A Hole, which appeared on the same album, Sgt. Pepper, as A Day In The Life. Coincidence?)
It’s instructive because both the readers of Daily Mail and followers of Nigel Farage’s private company masquerading as a political party, Reform Party UK Ltd, are often the same people, overwhelmingly old and deeply nostalgic for the good old days which were, of course, far better than today’s world where nearly everyone is a benefit scrounger, a paedophile, a Muslim migrant and/or transexual. After all, none of these things existed until Labour won the general election in 2024.
I was certainly around in the 1960s, although as we didn’t have a car, I cannot comment about the state of potholes up and down the country but I am inclined to believe that that they were just as bad, if not worse, than they are today. The main difference, to my mind, is that nearly everyone has to drive in order to get anywhere these days and the roads were simply not designed from the gridlock we face, hence they are falling apart.
Meanwhile back in 1967, presumably frothing with outrage and indignation, its normal setting, the Daily Mail had actually bought the story about the 4000 holes in Lancashire from the Star News Agency in Blackburn in order to entertain that generation’s angry pensioner readership.
I suppose Mail readers will be celebrating this morning with a cup of breakfast tea and a Rich Tea biscuit, safe in the knowledge that potholes in their local area will now be the responsibility of the Fagash Fuhrer, the Fascist Farage. They will be able to take solace in the fact that under Mussolini, the trains in Italy ran on time, and doubtless he fixed all of Italy’s potholes before losing the Second World War, something which must pain fascists to this day. At least in A Day In The Life, the English army won the war.
With Farage, our enemies – Russia, fascist tinpot states everywhere, as well as, increasingly, America – are our friends but hey, as long as they fix the holes in the road, everything will be fine. And today, as before World War Two, the Daily Mail will be on the side of the bad guys and Elsie Sproggett (75) will still be seething because that’s what Daily Mail readers do, each and every day.
Some things will never change, definitely not the Daily Mail and looking at the evidence the same applies to potholes.
