Monday 23rd August 2004
British public out of whack on Iraq
Still fretting, yet all is well
by Stowbury
The government is still struggling to get its message across to the British people that there is no longer cause for concern over events in Iraq. Though detained on holiday in Tuscany the prime minister is making daily calls to Downing Street to express his frustration at the lack of progress. Harassed press officer John Baloney sums up the dilemma: "It's the same brick wall we've come up against in the NHS, where people admit their own personal experience is perfectly OK and yet they still believe that for the public in general it's poor."
The parallel with Iraq is striking. Research indicates that more than 95 per cent of the electorate have no personal experience of even the most minor inconvenience in Iraq and yet 70 per cent believe that for the wider public as a whole it's riddled with problems. "It just doesn't add up," moans Baloney, clearly distraught at this national epidemic of muddled thinking. "The PM wants action, but until Philip gets back with his report we're paralysed."
That last remark can only mean one thing — in a bid to crack the mystery the government's ace pollmaster Philip Ghoul is out on the road, scouring the country for men in the street to sample. Local papers report a phantom figure loitering in pubs in the East Midlands and luring the more adventurous customers to the function room for a session of "adult discourse" based around a variety of "group stimulus techniques".
Store manager Darren Punter claims to be one of the victims. "As soon as the door shut behind us he seemed to exert a hypnotic spell and instead of getting our kit off we found ourselves in a weird kind of trance, gauging our responses to a set of five statements about Iraq," he recounted to The Rockall Times.