I feel sorry for poor old Armando Ianucci. Without doubt the current series of the Thick of It has been a triumph, it really has been one of the best things I’ve seen on TV in a long time. However I think he’s about to be surpassed as a scriptwriter. How can he compete with our very own Prime Minister?

It’s the only explanation for the total boneheaded stupidity we’ve seen coming from him and his immediate circle these past few days, with the exception of the explanation that our PM is totally boneheaded and stupid – a variable I am not about to dismiss.

Not only has there been the re-statement of his marriage to the EU in the most recent summit in Brussels (and there are so many summits nowadays that I’m starting to suspect that the whole continent is shaped like a giant bar of Toblerone) whilst he pretends to us that he might have had enough. . .

Actually. . .

Given their history, does it seem fair to draw a comparison with him telling the EU he loves them, and him telling us that he’s getting a bit sick of it, and a Tory MP telling his wife he loves her whilst he tells his bit on the side that he’s thinking of leaving the missus? That would make the British public the bit on the side, seems quite accurate to me.

Anyhow, not only that, but there’s been the whole Gideon on a choo-choo episode, swiftly followed by the ‘resignation’ of Mitchell for being a disrespectful potty mouth to the police, although he didn’t swear (as he claimed in PMQ’s), but he did (as he claimed to the Police Fed). Is this a Tory MP coming out with the equivalent of no, but, yeah, but, no, but, yeah? Had it been some lad clad in a kappa tracksuit called Jayden, or something, being a disrespectful potty mouth to the police, then a custodial sentence would have been called for by Dave and his party.

There was also the episode whereby the PM, it would seem, made up energy policy on the hoof and in the heat of battle. Energy suppliers must offer customers the lowest tariff? Really? And how long has the Conservative party been in the business of telling private business what they may offer? If you really want to have a pop at the utilities, ask them how their repeated price hikes are consistent with their record profits, ask them how it is possible for the rise in wholesale gas prices to be reflected immediately yet when the wholesale price drops it is not reflected at all. Ask them how it is they get away with acting in a fashion which is little better than a cartel. But first you’d better ask your MPs how many of them have, or have designs on, a non-exec post. Don’t want to do anything to upset your old mates, do you?

No, not content with overseeing the absolute disaster of a week, I see in the Telegraph today that he’s had an even more stupid idea.

Owners of private prisons who fail to stop prisoners re-offending will be fined, under new plans to be announced by David Cameron.

*golf clap*

Really?

So, let me get this right, some scrote gets nicked, prosecuted and convicted. He is then sent to prison. Now, unless I missed a memo, the prisons themselves don’t get a choice over which villain they get, do they? There isn’t an 11+ for crims, is there? I can only imagine the uproar if private prisons came with a selective policy.

So, let us assume that is John McScrote’s fifth spell at Her Maj’s. How the hell are they supposed to stop re-offending? The public sector prisons haven’t managed it, so how are the private sector ones supposed to?

You really want to fine a prison because one of the people you sent there has been a bit naughty for the umpteenth time? It’s your government that’s only making people serve half their sentence. It’s your government that has made an open prison down here more like a bloody pop-in centre, where spending the night seems to be somehow optional (Just Google Blantyre House, I’ve stayed in Pontin’s camps with a more hardline chalet policy). And you want to fine prisons because someone they were told to put up for a few weeks has been naughty again?

Why stop there? Why not fine the Acme jemmy and swag bag company for burglary facilitation?

Under the slogan ‘Tough But Intelligent’, the Prime Minister will signal a tougher approach to law and order by declaring “retribution is not a dirty word”.

Tough. But. Intelligent.

Just reflect on that.

Tough. But. Intelligent.

No, me neither.

It is real ‘quiet bat people’ stuff.

Poor old Armando, at this rate the Bafta for best satirical comedy will be picked up by Dave&Gideon Productions (Westminster) Ltd. He doesn’t stand a chance.