How to ignore an earthquake

Published on 10 March 2008 as part of my Letter from Britain newspaper column in South Africa. Not much has chnaged on these issues since then.

I sympathise with my wife.

Years ago she accepted my heart. Now she is saddled with the rest of my body parts - including a gramophone record face that snores at night on the pillow next to her.

Unsurprisingly I am a deep sleeper and she is a light sleeper.

That explains why she was wide awake a few nights ago right through Britain's most violent earthquake in 25 years whilst I slept on untroubled next to her.

To me the earthquake, which measured 5.2 on the Richter scale, proved empirically that there are no ghosts in our house because not a single skeleton fell out of any cupboard.

However, it also proved that women are more awake than men. My wife even sensed the earthquake beforehand.

And so the question arose: Seeing that women have been ruling the world as micro regents for so long, has the time not arrived for a woman to once again rule Britain?

A Margaret Thatcher. Someone with prescience and an ear for political earthquakes.

Half of the male bunch currently in control of Britain are tragically hard of hearing and the rest come from the Ministry for National Ignorance.

Prime Minister Boredom, apologies, Gordon Brown is a man off undeviating indecision and ambiguity that rings clear as a bell - a man who, in 2007, half-heartedly hinted at an election and then ran away. He was so indecisive in the case of Northern Rock, the troubled bank situated in the heartland of his party’s supporters, that he dithered for many months on private sector solutions and then nationalised the bank with government guarantees of £100 billion.

Yes comrades, Northern Rock is a glorious victory for the proletariat! Our People's Bank is a milestone in the Cultural Revolution against all despicable capitalists - particularly those recalcitrant individuals who would have used their detestable capital to disadvantage our dearest compatriots in the Northern Rock region. Away with Richard Bransonism! Viva superior socialism! With central planning our People's Bank will be victorious in the competitive struggle against all underhanded capitalist banks!

Dear reader, we apologise for this unsolicited interruption.

More than one third of Britain’s total production today emanates from the financial and business sectors - to a large degree due to tax incentives for non-domiciled residents which created massive capital inflow. The multiplier effect of these people and their money has been phenomenal.

In a recent war to gain votes all political parties suddenly agreed that the tax incentives for non-domiciled residents, most of whom by sheer coincidence have no voting rights, should be withdrawn once they remain longer than seven years in the UK.

In 2006 South Africa almost approved a law that would have precluded foreigners from purchasing houses in South Africa. The reason behind that was that some South Africans complained that they were being priced out of the housing market. Fortunately the South African government saw the light because foreign inward capital flow is indeed similar to an easy export product at minimal cost. Yes, South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel is not just a beautiful face.

Now, at a time of tales of recession and nationalisation, similar complaints from locals in Britain have led to a point where Britain now actively encourages capital flight. According to the Lord Mayor of London the net loss of the non-domiciled withdrawal of incentives, just in the Square mile of the City, could amount to £1.2 billion.

How could these Martians in control not sense the financial earthquake? How could they ignore the negative multiplier effect, the impending decline of London as a financial centre, the repositioning of head offices in London as branches of head offices from elsewhere - and that Britain would become nothing more than a book entry from elsewhere?

We interrupt this imperialistic Letter from Britain.

Workers of Britain, unite!

Just like Comrade Fidel Castro chased away the hated foreign capitalists from his soil in 1959 and transformed Cuba into an economic paradise, our heroic leader, comrade Gordonov Brownski, today delivers to you a new dawn for a progressive future! Away with the treacherous non-domiciled reactionary oligarchs! With our brave central planners we will chase these money schemers to the far corners of Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Geneva and Monaco! We will drive all shipping oligarchs back to Athens and those American financial vultures back to their nests in Wall Street!

Comrades, house prices will fall so that you can afford housing. Our People's Bank, Northern Rock, will support you with financing. Restaurants and hotels will not be crowded any more with abominable non-domiciles. No, those entities will stand empty for you, our beloved proletariat.

Rest assured that unfaithful private doctors will lose their contaminated non-domiciled support and will return as loyal government labourers to the heart of our beloved National Health Service. As you know, comrades, our outstanding government pays excellent salaries to all 1.4 million state workers in the National Health Service, including medical doctors. Comrades, take pride in this outstanding body - the fifth largest employer in the world - where you now have to wait a mere 45 to 77 weeks for a trauma or orthopaedic procedure such as a hip operation.

Comrades, here at the Westminster Politburo there are rumblings from below and we know that this is the wave of patriotism, collectivism and proletarian internationalism beneath our feet.

Comrades rest assured, we are there for you. From now on you can sleep in tranquillity.

Rest in peace.