UK PLC is pleased to announce the successful outcome of its recent international negotiations with other country PLCs. Some of them began the discussions sceptical about the wisdom of our strategy of seeking to maximise both borrowings and losses. Despite this, I am delighted to report that all agreed that international bodies should support any national PLC following such a policy with additional lending to them when the money runs out at home. This is a most important development, designed to reduce any external constraint on our policy. It was also good to see the CEO of the very powerful US PLC following a similar approach to our own and offering us warm words of encouragement. Their level of borrowing far exceeeds our own, but if you adjust for the relative sizes I would point out that we are still well ahead in building debt.
Meanwhile we continue to make progress with the core strategy. Recently we added the toxic assets and more risky investments of Dunfermline to our portfolio, taking us to controlling the risky assets of six banks. All but one of these, the original LLoyds, have plenty of scope to add to the total losses, and should need extra support in the future. We continue to add staff to increase our wage bill, and the unfunded pension liabilities are increasing at a satisfying rate. The pensions bill will continue to soar from the increases in numbers of people on the payroll, and from the public sector pay rises we are putting through. Do not worry about the recent rally in share markets which might apparently start to cut the deficit in the funded schemes. By keeping gilt yields down through our policy of quantitative easing we can ensure pension funds need even more capital to balance their books, keeping the deficits up.
I am sure you will agree the MP s who help us implement this strategy deserve a pay rise for what has been the most successful period ever in our history at boosting public borrowing and spending in this unique way. I do hope you will also agree with the Chairman of our crucial RBS subsidiary that criticism of that company has been overdone. I find it especially disappointing that their inspired decision to boost their pension deficit and our borrowing in order to pay a decent pension to their former CEO has attracted so much adverse comment. You should expect more such moves, as they show just how serious we are to implement our core stragey whatever the noises off.
I will be reporting soon on the growing success of our strategy in the social housing area. We have established a bridge bank to handle the loans of Dunfermline in this overextended sector, and look for more news to come on the build up of debt here.
We have decided to allow some of our employees in the public sector led by the MPs more time off over Easter in gratitude for their efforts.
April 5, 2009
Excellent John. Elsewhere it is mooted this is all true and a design to deliver us meekly into Europe as a poor relation and minor state. It looks more and more likely to happen. The one problem is, unlike our esteemed PM, saviour of the world, they may not be so overjoyed to except such a gigantic toxic waste. The debt (that is-ed).
April 5, 2009
Surely not Easter – to celebrate our Risen Lord. No, more time off over the Spring Festival.
April 5, 2009
Love it!
April 5, 2009
P.S. I can happily report that as anticipated our approval rating has risen by 3% points as a result of our skilful handling of the media during and after the negotiations.
April 5, 2009
Shouldn’t that be U.S. Inc.?
April 5, 2009
John
Todays papers.
You missed an inmportant reason why Tax takes are down.
MPs Expenses seem to absolve them of any contribution.
Would be even worse if us plebs who pay for all of this were allowed the same.
Simply disgusted.
April 5, 2009
They are pretty aweful articles – do you normally pay taxes on secretary/research assistant salaries or stationary/postage or mileage to constituency events or to events in your capacity as an MP? This will make up the bulk of most, though not all MPs expenses, the dreaded ACA allowance not withstanding! Reason seems to have departed both the media and many of the public because of too many seemingly inappropiate uses of Parliamentary allowances has understandibly in many cases inflamed people’s senses that reason has departed.
April 5, 2009
Very well done for first thing on a Sunday.
April 5, 2009
John – this is a terrific series and we’re saving them all.
What a shame you can’t get it syndicated as satire and humour is so often the best way to get reality across to the wider audience.
Just ask Uncle Vince who’s still dining out on Mr Bean!
April 5, 2009
TO: The Chairman of UK PLC
FROM: Acornus Expensius and Maximus Attorneys (Galactic Division)
Dear Sir
We have been retained by several million plaintiffs to instigate a class action against UK PLC. The principal accusation is that you are a willing participant in a cartel.
The purpose of the cartel being to deceive current and future taxpayers on the planet Earth, as to the level of debt they will incur over their life span (Species 125; Carbon based Units). This cartel being known as “G20”.
It is our intension to refer UK PLC and some counter-parties of your known acquaintance, to the Monopolies Commission on Earth in the first instance.
We further accuse you of failing to prepare financial accounts to a sufficient standard that would allow Species 125 to understand the liabilities you have subjected them to.
Additionally, we accuse you of using this cartel to monopolise taxation levels of Species 125, with your actions to eliminate tax competition from non G20 states, these being known as “tax havens”. Despite the fact that UK PLC owns several of them, as do your co-conspirators.
(AEM Attorneys are galactic specialists in black hole accounting.)
April 5, 2009
You sarky ****.
April 6, 2009
I think the weblog convention now is “Hoon” rather than 4 asterix.
April 5, 2009
And what are your party going to do to change anything when you get into power (if we are granted an election)? Will it all be business as usual, feathering the nests of the chosen few at the expense of the many?
From where we are sitting, there’s nothing much to choose between any of the parties.
April 5, 2009
Sadly you are right, there is no choice, other than between voting and not voting of course.
Perhaps if Labour won another term, Gordon Brown might find himself having to deal with the mountain of debt he’s created. As a bonus, maybe the Tories would go away and re-invent themselves as, firstly, an opposition with teeth, and the guts to use them, and secondly as an electable alternative.
Whoever one votes for, and whoever wins, we will have five more years of the same.
New Labour v Blue Labour
April 5, 2009
Thankyou Mr Chairman.
As representative for the taxpayer/shareholders of BigBank Corp PLC UK I was asked to see if there was any truth in the rumour that branches would be closing in the near future and thousands of staff let go. I understand that remote and rural branches are the most likely to close. Its just that coupled with last years decimation of the Post Office many communities would have no banking facilities whatsoever. What assurances, if any, can you give.
April 5, 2009
… and the shareholders are looking forward to their meeting in June 2010.
April 5, 2009
So where can I buy the shares? Or can I swap them for my old Enron stock, and grandfather’s Tsarist Russian Imperial Bonds? There are some old Reichsmarks tucked away in a drawer………..
April 5, 2009
Brilliant! Its about time the G20 was given a dose of withering sarcasm to wake people up.
“We’ll agree to agree with each other and then go forth and proliferate in our own countries where we will return to doing our own thing anyway, secure in the knowledge that we have patted each other on the back in public.”
What a depressing waste of £20m. It’s time the shareholders of UK PLC woke up, asked whether they were getting value for money in return for constantly being asked to shore up a failing company.
April 5, 2009
Satire apart, does Mr. Redwood believe that his Party will be doing any better in their poll ratings after the Tory Leadership virtually disappeared during the week of the G20 summit, which happened immediately following Jacqui Smith’s Porn Purchases and the tragedy of Mid-Stafford hospitals?
Say what you wish about our Gordon, and there is plenty to be said, at least he was out and about; to be truthful I believe he had a death grip on a microphone at one point! I heard a tiny sound-munch from William Hague (it was too small to be a sound-bite!), a dithering in the bushes from ‘Our Dave’, who still cannot decide whether to upset George Osborne or Ken Clarke, and that was just about it!
There was a quarter-page piece on the Tory M.P. Philip Hollobone who comes in lowest in the ‘expenses gravy train stakes’, but apart from him, now’t much for the Tories! Their poll ratings stubbornly stick around twelve points, and any Chancellor worth his onions knows that a swift budgetary ‘stimulus’ package, dressed up in the ‘Caring Labour’ brand of soap suds, to give a quick bribe to the Labour Plebs, will demolish that lead in double quick time!
Hey Ho, where is Enoch, now that we really need him?
April 5, 2009
Before you can install the New, they must first utterly destroy the Old.
The Banksters New World Order.
Oh, and they want your children chipped.
April 5, 2009
The Redwood report submitted to the Shadow Cabinet by the Conservative Economic Competitiveness Policy Group said this:
“The following regulations should be repealed:
– Mortgage regulation
– Financial Services regulation for rich and sophisticated investors”
Oh and dissolve the NHS while we’re at it.
Reply: and said we needed tougher regulation of cash and capital by banks and mortgage banks, which is where the problems arose. Why didn’t the mortgage regulation introduced by Labour and which you support stop all these dodgy mortgages, and why did 5 banks get into serious financial trouble on this watch when there was so much extra regulation? And what has any of that to do with the NHS? Your comment is a typical nasty and misinformed attempt to misrepresent what I stand for and for the improvements I would like to make to improve people’s lives through informed debate.
April 19, 2009
I would like you to consider for a minute that the reason we are in this crisis, apart from Labour, is because the banks decided it was correct to lend the money. Bankers should be knowing enough to lend mortgages responsibly as it is the business they are in. Also to blame are the people who chose to borrow the money even though it was blatently obvious that house prices could not rise forever so its not just Labour regulations to blame. Anyway where was the Tory voice on this matter before the bubble burst, just because you are not in power doesn’t mean you don’t have a strong respected image which could have warned the government, banks and people of the country you claim to love so much if you had kept your eye on the ball.
The NHS is relevent because its all about income and expenditures at the end of the day. You started the sarcasm, I guess you as a typical Tory don’t like being treated with the same level of respect you like to give out.
Reply: I am used to being attacked in an unpleasant way by Labour.
The Conservatives did warn that the country was getting too heavily into debt and that we were facing a credit bubble.
April 20, 2009
Labour is also far too used to also being attacked in an unpleasent way by the opposition, very childish behaviour all round.
If only next time a bubble is being created or any major problem was creeping up on us the opposition would responsibly inform the government, without turning it into a silly kerfuffle in the house, maybe the country would be better off. Maybe the best way to get them to listen is not to tell them but anonymously gift them with a detailed report which gives them the facts needed to come to the rational conclusion.
As responsible Britons you should not feel the need to take credit for it. Placing point scoring above the wellbeing of the country is disgraceful. I know its highly unlikley to ever happen, but when it comes down to it, that is only because ALL high ranking British politicans are too used to putting party before country.
Reply: Telling them through Parliament, and through the publication of serious reports, as we did, is the way to do it. You cannot make the Conservatives responsible for the current mess which has occurred as a result of this government’s mistakes.
April 20, 2009
I can’t agree thats “the way to do it” as it obviously didn’t work this time around. Perhaps it should be more about the right tactic for the right situation.
Yes, Labour should have listened. Looking back with the benefit of hindsight it seems crazy that they ignored the warnings.
Seriously i’m not trying to pass on all the blame to the Tory party, I know it was Labours fault, through not choosing the right regulations they failed to prevent the credit market from spiraling out of control and whats more they didn’t see it as a problem until it was too late.
April 5, 2009
Should you get into power…will you repeal that nasty little piece of social engineering called the Smoking ban?
That would be the only basis on which I would bother to vote for you…since your no different from Labour!
April 5, 2009
A nice satire Mr Redwood.
oldrightie has the right of it re: the collective dictatorship trading as the EU.
My worry is that Cameron will carry on the same.
Oh, while on the subject of PLC. interesting that D&B B.I.S. as trading as MoD.
The same D&B shows Consignia as no longer trading. So who is trousering all of the extorted TV Licnse fees?…
April 5, 2009
[…] poor old Polly Toynbee still does not get it…h/t The Devil. John Redwood thinks she’s (wrong-ed) but I guess she will let it pass, and will fly to her house in Italy untroubled… Possibly […]
April 6, 2009
From time to time you may have come across freelancers, like myself, campaigning about the abolition of IR35, which treats as like employees for tax purposes but treats us as businesses for employment rights, pensions, sick pay and and holiday pay (i.e. we don’t get them).
I’d be grateful if, whenever you hear an M.P. defending IR35, you remind them that we freelancers also do not get our homes and contents and stamp duty paid for.
Thanks.