Two plus two. You know what? For years and years we’ve been told that two and two make four. And guess what? They don’t.
Never have, never will. And here’s the thing. Two plus two makes much, much more than four, always has done, always will. But this government and every government this century - well, they don’t want us to know the truth, so, frankly, they’ve cooked the books. But the real point about this, the real point, and not just about this, is who makes these decisions. And you know what? At the moment, it’s not us. Of course it’s not. It’s them, whoever they are.
And that’s the whole point.
Let me simplify this for you, OK? Back in the fifties and sixties, to some extent even the seventies, we all agreed - normal people, people who owned small businesses, those with what I call proper jobs, like the good old candlestick makers, people you’d be happy to go out for a pint with - everyone agreed that two plus two equals eight, nine or even, in a good year, ten.
And no one had any sort of problem with that. But then we entered Europe and what happened was this. Great Britain lost all control over our own simple addition.
You know what? When I was a young boy, we could all do sums. Two plus two? Simple. Eight. We all knew it. The copper down the street knew it. The plucky little lad working his socks off up the chimneys knew it. The costermonger knew it. And – you know what? – back then even the politicians knew it! And – believe me – that’s saying something!
Great Britain lost all control over our own simple addition.
And here’s the thing – no, let me finish – here’s the thing. Over the years, through a mixture of treachery, misinformation and sheer bloody incompetence, state schoolteachers began fooling our kids into thinking that these good old-fashioned traditional sums just did not add up. Seriously, there were schools where you’d get marked down for saying that two plus two makes eight, I kid you not. From now on, teachers were under strict instructions from the faceless bureaucrats to say that two plus two made four - even though everyone knew that two and two could make up to half a dozen at the very least.
OK, it went against common sense - but what did they ever care about common sense?
The solution is perfectly simple. What we have to do first is take back control of the numbers and these are the very numbers which, let’s face it, Britain gave the world. You name it - Brazil, Belgium, New Zealand, Canada, Botswana - throughout the world, they credit Great Britain for giving them numbers. One - two - three - four - yup, we invented them all! And let me ask you this. Why should we hang our heads in shame that it was this country that gave our numbers to the world? Numbers were among our proudest exports. The envy of the world. But, oh no, we’re not allowed to mention this anymore, are we, or the thought police will come knocking for us!
So let’s do the sums - the actual sums, if you don’t mind, not the make-believe sums that the metropolitan elite want us to believe.
OK. We’ve got two and we’ve got three, and together, as all sensible people know, they make six. That much we can agree on. But what I say is that with a bit of a shove, a bit of encouragement, they can make much, much more than that. Yes, without Whitehall interference two and two can easily add up to seven, eight, nine, maybe ten!
And you know what? Some leading experts have told me - strictly in private, mind, because they don’t want to lose their jobs, do they? - that they wouldn’t be remotely surprised if in the medium-to-long term, and under a decent government, two and two could add up to fifteen or even with a decent headwind twenty.
I look at ‘two plus two equals four’ and - frankly - it’s a big lie. Listen, we’ve been hearing this for a quarter of a century - two plus two equals four. All the mainstream, establishment parties within the M25 have parroted it. And you know why? Because it suits them to. And now we’ve got a courageous figure like Vladimir Putin - a very courageous guy, by the way, and, no, I’m not saying I agree with him on every single issue - who’s simply not letting his country and its sums be kicked about by the global elite and who says that two plus two equals whatever he likes.
And - you know what? - I don’t blame him.
I look at ‘two plus two equals four’ and - frankly - it’s a big lie.
Hang on a second, let me explain. It’s a simple matter of numbers. In Hungary, two plus two equals one. We can all agree on that. In Germany, it’s three. In Italy and parts of Serbia, four or five. But, no, we don’t have to follow them like so many sheep. We can set our own rules. Some of us prefer to stand on our own six feet. What we could do, for instance, is take four from seven which equals five and then add that to the two which brings it back to seven.
So, let me finish. We urgently need some fresh figures on this. And - you know what? - I’ve got them. 88 percent of percentages - and, to be absolutely clear, this isn’t just any old figure plucked from the air, it’s from the Central Office for Official Percentages in Maidenhead - a full 88 percent of percentages mean nothing at all and should be discarded. Of the 33 percent remaining, roughly 99.999 percent - and that’s even allowing for market fluctuations - show conclusively that two plus two equals, guess what?
Yup. 22.
And this - I kid you not - is the very same figure that ordinary decent British people have always known they equal.
It’s as simple as that.
Craig Brown has written the Private Eye satirical diary for more than 30 years and is the author of 150 Glimpses of the Beatles
