We should be more like Germany, say tabloids who were still making Achtung Panzer jokes three weeks ago

The COVID 19 panic has forced several tabloids to conveniently forget their decades of childish jokes about Germany and World War 2 and ask the British government why they can’t act with Teutonic efficiency.

Simon Williams, a senior editor for the Daily Express who has never put Germany on a front-page without a shitty pun about the Blitz, was one of many to lambast Boris Johnson for not emulating those “sensible forward-planners across the Rhine”.

He went on, “I drive an Audi, so I know all about Vorsprung durch Technik. The Germans are a pragmatic lot that approach problems like engineers. We need to stop our pathetic insistence of viewing this great European nation through the prism of a mythologised war that very few living Brits experienced.

“When we read that Germany can test 500,000 people a week and we just barely managed to test 2,000 NHS staff, it’s time to learn from their example. If they can do it when coordinating a plethora of healthcare providers and 16 regional governments then surely we can ask their advice for the NHS?”

Asked what he thought about what lessons could be learned from the horrific death toll in Italy, Mr Williams was less complimentary.

He went on, “Ah well, that’s down to their fiery Latin temperament. The virus must have spread because of all those Mamma’s boys pinching bottoms while riding Vespas. Can’t help themselves you see. No discipline. We saw how easily they crumbled after the Anzio landings and Monte Cassino.

“Good food though. I love spaghetti hoops on toast.”