AT LAST, my friends, we can say goodbye and good riddance to 2021 – and 2020 for that matter.
For billions of fit and healthy people it’s been like World War Three without shellfire.
Covid was a tragedy for those who died and a terrifying near-miss for those, like me, who came close to meeting the Grim Reaper.
It was as if, for two painful years, the levers of government were snatched away and handed to unelected forces, random events and panicked responses.
Lockdown was a hammer blow to prosperity, social cohesion, the home-alone elderly and sad, school-less children. The toll in physical and mental health will take years to fix.
So, folks, having learned from bitter experience, I will put my New Year resolutions in writing and send them up the chimney to Santa. Whoops! That was last week, wasn’t it?
ONE: Scout’s honour, I promise lockdown will never happen again.
We will shred emergency laws which allow clod-hopping cops to tell us we can’t sit on park benches, console elderly mums and dads, walk with a friend in the open air — or hold parties in Downing Street.
I will not wait for an official inquiry before tackling secretive Sage conspirators who made life such a misery for everyone who actually obeys rules.
That fellow Neil Ferguson will be consigned to outer darkness, or the arms of his lockdown lover.
Sage — or its replacement — will be open and accountable, its decisions and data published for all to see. I am shocked we can still only guess how many were killed by Covid alone.
TWO: Our “sacred” NHS will be answerable for the way it spends the untold billions we’re pouring in while still failing to cope with routine winter flu.
Money is not the problem. The Blob is the problem.
I bow to no one in my admiration of doctors and nurses, but we are being held to ransom by a system designed to be for ever on the brink of collapse.
The fearsomely expensive Nightingale wards set up in April 2020 were left unused.
Yet fewer beds are available now than at the peak of the pandemic.
What happened to all your money? Mes amis, I haven’t a clue. Nor has anyone else.
THREE: Talking of Blobs, I will tackle the sclerotic bureaucracy known as the civil service.
Every Whitehall department — from the Treasury to the Home Office — is crammed with risk-averse pen-pushers sitting at home and Zooming into pointless committee meetings.
When I see a problem from my desk in No 10, I demand action, pull a lever — and nothing happens.
Take the recent collapse of Kabul, with thousands of Afghans pleading for sanctuary.
The head Foreign Office honcho, knowing it was on the cards, went on holiday! Oh, yes . . . so did the Foreign Secretary.
And those mangy cats and dogs? Did we really airlift them out while desperate people were left behind?
Money is not the problem. The Blob is the problem.
FOUR: Find a new Chief Whip, pronto. Mark Spencer is a nice chap but totally clueless.
He’s supposed to be my ruthless capo dei capi, running a team of spies and throttling every Westminster plot at birth.
So what happens when I try to reimpose lockdown by the back door?
I’m debagged in public by 100 Remainer and Spartan ruffians who hate me for Brexit — or not Brexiting enough.
It’s like being back at Eton. Much more of this and I’ll be expelled.
By the way, a vote of thanks to the dozen of my brave Cabinet comrades who stopped me cancelling Christmas and left that Nicola Sturgeon menace looking foolish.
FIVE: Dump Cressida Dick. Quick. Voters have lost trust in Scotland Yard.
Police won’t touch so-called minor crime, even when thieves are caught red-handed.
Rape convictions have plummeted.
Cops stand by while Insulate Britain paralyse London, leaving taxpayers with a bill for £4million.
They seem more interested in Covid breaches than listening to a distraught grandfather reporting the slow death of little Arthur Labinjo-Hughes.
There are bad apples everywhere in the police force.
Monster Wayne Couzens used his warrant card to kidnap and murder poor Sarah Everard.
Two cops are in jail after taking selfies alongside the corpses of two murdered sisters.
Sort it out, Priti.
SIX: That Frenchman . . . err, married to his grandmother. Yes, that’s it, Emmanuel Macron.
Give him a biff sur le nez. He’s running rings round us, grabbing our fish and making life impossible in Northern Ireland.
Frostie (ex-Brexit Secretary Lord Frost to you, folks) warned me about his attempts to sabotage Brexit.
Unfortunately I let Frostie go — the last of The Few.
Actually, we’ve given Brussels a run for its money, luring back global giants Unilever and Shell and, believe it or not, remaining the world’s No 1 trader in the European single currency, of all things. More of that, Liz Truss.
SEVEN: I need an eye-catching initiative with which I can be personally associated, as T Blair would say.
A surprise tax-cutting spring Budget would take the sting out of those blasted NI hikes Rishi Sunak imposed to pay for my £13billion NHS splurge.
Maybe a cut in VAT to blunt the soaring cost of living? Cuts in business tax? Something to reduce fuel bills?
You can do it, Rishi. Huzzah!
EIGHT: I’d love to row back on my exorbitant zero emissions promises, but Carrie won’t let me.
The sight of Greta Thunberg shouting “Blah! Blah! Blah!” sent a rush of blood to my head. It’s simply unaffordable.
That Frenchman . . . err, married to his grandmother. Yes, that’s it, Emmanuel Macron.
Once voters realise the cost of heat pumps and power cuts, this Government will be unelectable. But I’ll be gone by then.
NINE: Sort out the snowflakes. I don’t even begin to understand identity politics and cancel culture.
I can’t get my head around the trans debate. Do women have penises? Not in my experience. Poor JK Rowling.
There’s nothing but trouble here for the journalist-politician, although Liz Truss seems to be scoring well on the subject with the party faithful.
Perhaps I should screw up my courage as sturdy defender of free speech and make a speech.
Perhaps not.
TEN: I must do something about unaccountable quangos.
Pick someone clever like William Shawcross to be head of Ofcom and sort out the BBC. And charities, stuffed with shroud-waving Labourites.
Along with Whitehall and the Beeb, they are more powerful than all the MPs in Parliament put together.
A rattling good list, don’tcha think?
Just one thing. I never was a boy Scout.
