Pigs might fly

It’s the question on everyone’s lips. Can you get swine flu from sticking your snout in the trough? Should the snuffling pigs of parliament and the City be required to wear face masks while in the pursuit of self-enrichment. Snout to snout contact can only be a major transmitter of the deadly disease, which has killed all of zero people in Britain so far.

Actually, it’s really an insult to the pig community to talk about swine flu. It should really be called non-specific animal-related influenza since it’s not even clear that it comes from pigs. And comparing pigs to porcine parliamentarians might also be seen as offensive to four-legged sty-dwellers. For all their reputation for gluttony, pigs are social and very intelligent creatures, which is more than you can say for many politicians.

You can put lipstick on Jacqui Smith but she’s still Jacqui Smith. Pigs don’t get porn films on expenses, or bath plugs = not that they would have much use for them. And they’re clean as a whistle when it comes to the second homes allowance. True, pigs have been known to eat their own young when under severe stress, but that’s just part of their culture.

Winston Churchill was on the money when he said that: “Dogs look up to man. Cats look down to man. Pigs look us straight in the eye and see an equal”. Though it has to be said that in Westminster you also find them looking down from the press gallery. In July, when the full horror is revealed about the exotic uses to which MPs have been using their expenses - resignations and even suicides are being talked about - the pigs of the press will be looking down in disgust.

But back to swine flu. We all suspected that God was angry with us for the credit crunch and global warming so it should come as no surprise that He has sent us a final warning not to take him for granted. Fair dos. But it seems, well, just a little indiscriminate. It’s all very well punishing antisocial elements like bankers and four-by-four drivers, but is it really necessary to inflict a global pandemic on the rest of us? Could He not send a narrowdemic that targets the real pigs like Sir Fred Goodwin and Jeremy Clarkson? The rest of us would get the message soon enough and change our ways. Then again, I suppose pigs might fly.

Poor benighted Gordon Brown is trying to frighten us all into supporting him again by issuing alarmist posters showing people spraying deadly germs from their mouths like a viral monsoon. This is beyond personal hygiene. Personally I think all people of working age should wear life-size condoms to practise safe socialising. It’s the only way of keeping it all in. Choose life.