Brief Banter By Ben

LABOUR GOVERNMENT: REST OF THE WORLD VERSION

The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building and improving his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed.

The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

THE END

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LABOUR GOVERNMENT: THE UK VERSION

The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed.

A social worker finds the shivering grasshopper, calls a press conference and demands to know why the squirrel should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like the grasshopper, are cold and starving.

The BBC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper; with cuts to a video of the squirrel in his comfortable warm home with a table laden with food.

The British press inform people that they should be ashamed that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so, while others have plenty.

The Labour Party, Greenpeace, Animal Rights and The Grasshopper Council of GB demonstrate in front of the squirrel's house. The BBC, interrupting a cultural festival special from Notting Hill with breaking news, broadcasts a multi-cultural choir singing 'We shall overcome'. Ken Livingstone rants in an interview with Trevor McDonald that the squirrel got rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the squirrel to make him pay his 'fair share' and increases the charge for squirrels to enter inner London .

In response to pressure from the media, the Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper anti Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The squirrel's taxes are reassessed. He is taken to court and fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as builders for the work he was doing on his home and an additional fine for contempt when he told the court the grasshopper did not want to work. The grasshopper is provided with a council house, financial aid to furnish it and an account with a local taxi firm to ensure he can be socially mobile. The squirrel's food is seized and re distributed to the more needy members of society, in this case the grasshopper.

Without enough money to buy more food, to pay the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, the squirrel has to downsize and start building a new home. The local authority takes over his old home and utilises it as a temporary home for asylum seeking cats who had hijacked a plane to get to Britain as they had to share their country of origin with mice. On arrival they tried to blow up the airport because of Britain's apparent love of dogs.

The cats had been arrested for the international offence of hijacking and attempted bombing but were immediately released because the police fed them pilchards instead of salmon whilst in custody. Initial moves to return them to their own country were abandoned, because it was feared they would face death by the mice. The cats devise and start a scam to obtain money from people's credit cards.

A Panorama special shows the grasshopper finishing up the last of the squirrel's food, though spring is still months away, while the council house he is in, crumbles around him because he hasn't bothered to maintain the house. He is shown to be taking drugs. Inadequate government funding is blamed for the grasshoppers' drug 'illness'.

The cats seek recompense in the British courts for their treatment since arrival in UK .

The grasshopper gets arrested for stabbing an old dog during a burglary to get money for his drugs habit. He is imprisoned but released immediately because he has been in custody for a few weeks. He is placed in the care of the probation service to monitor and supervise him.. Within a few weeks he has killed a guinea pig in a botched robbery.

A commission of enquiry, that will eventually cost £10,000,000 and state the obvious, is set up. Additional money is put into funding a drug rehabilitation scheme for
grasshoppers and legal aid for lawyers representing asylum seekers is increased. The government praises the asylum-seeking cats for enriching Britain's multicultural diversity, and dogs are criticised by the government for failing to befriend the cats.

The grasshopper dies of a drug overdose. The usual sections of the press blame it on the obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity and his traumatic experience of prison. They call for the resignation of a government minister.

The cats are paid a million pounds each because their rights were infringed when the government failed to inform them there were mice in the United Kingdom.

The squirrel, the dogs and the victims of the hijacking, the bombing, the burglaries and robberies have to pay an additional percentage on their credit cards to cover losses. Their taxes are increased to pay for law and order, and they are told that they will have to work beyond 65 because of a shortfall in government funds.

THE END

Brits are now getting seriously cheesed off with Mr Obama. His desperate attempts to gain ground in his ever diminishing ratings are apparently making him lash out at his partners in the "Special Relationship" which seems to be very much one way. Does he not realise that BP employ 10,000 people outside the USA, but 20,000 inside the USA , and that 39% of the share holding in BP is held by US investors !

This is a company that was granted licence's by the USA to drill in deep water in the Gulf of Mexico so that USA can get cheaper and more "secure" oil and gas instead of being dependant on the Middle East with its associated risks.

So come on America, FFS wake up! The best technology in the world is working 24/7 to solve this problem, Don't you think they know how bad it is? BP has made mistakes but the US govt did give the OK to drill there, a mile under water then another 1 to 2 miles into the sea bed. ..... and the rig was American owned and staffed.......

Oh by the way Mr Obama, in the cause of balance, when are you going to clean up Bhopal in India, only 2,000 people died... Thousands injured, and you ( the USA ) refused to make the accountable person(s) from Dow/Union Carbide available for court hearings, and the then CEO is now comfortably retired in the Hamptons, yet the ruined factory is still untouched after 24 years and associated land unusable because of the toxic fall out, and birth defects still increasing....

Just seen this article in "Private Eye"

"Adding anger in the U.S. over the catastrophe in the Gulf, is the fact that two of the firms most closely involved are based even further offshore than the Deepwater rig itself, mainly for tax reasons.

Transocean, the firm that operated the rig ( under contract ) for our own BP, moved from the US to the Cayman Islands in 1999, and then to Switzerland in 2008.

Halliburton, which was cementing the well before the blow-out, is regarded as a very American company, but actually started moving most of it's operations to Dubai in 2007.

Both Switzerland and Dubai has extremely attractive and opaque corporate tax regimes for overseas companies. I wonder why Mr. Obama is quiet on this, at least B.P. pays it's taxes in it's own country, the UK.

Buy British fuel - Don't go to American oil companies such as Texaco, Esso (Standard Oil) Amaco , etc

On another Plumber's truck: 'Don't sleep with a drip. Call your plumber.'

On a Church's Bill board: '7 days without God makes one weak.'

At a Tyre Shop in Milwaukee: 'Invite us to your next blowout.'

At a Towing company: 'We won't charge an arm and a leg. We want tows.'

On an Electrician's truck: 'Let us remove your shorts.'

In a Nonsmoking Area: 'If we see smoke, we will assume you are on fire and take appropriate action.'

On a Maternity Room door: 'Push. Push. Push.'

At an Optometrist's Office: 'If you don't see what you're looking for, you've come to the right place.'

On a Taxidermist's window: 'We really know our stuff.'

On a house gate: 'Salesmen welcome! Dog food is so expensive!'

At a Car Salesroom Forecourt: 'The best way to get back on your feet - miss a car payment.'

Outside a Car Exhaust Garage: 'No appointment necessary. We hear you coming.'

In a Veterinarian's waiting room: 'Be back in 5 minutes. Sit! Stay!'

At the Electric Company 'We will be delighted if you send in your payment.
However, if you don't, you will be.'

In a Restaurant window: 'Don't stand there and be hungry; come on in and get fed up.'

In the front window of a Funeral Home: 'Drive carefully. We'll wait.'

At a Propane Filling Station: 'Thank Heaven for little grills.'

And don't forget the sign at a Chicago Radiator Shop: 'Best place in town to take a leak..'


Sign on the back of another Septic Tank Truck: 'Caution - This Truck is full of Political Promises'