Awakening towards the end of 2013, I realised that a certain political correctness had afflicted me in recent months, repressing my spirits and satirical proclivities. To set me to rights, I was later visited by the spirit of the seasonal e-pantomine who advised me to set down the following synopsis.
The events of this tale occur at an unspecified time in the future. Former British prime minister Tony Blair and Lord Peter Mandelson have acquired a mysterious life-prolonging elixir and now co-habit the Palace of the Parliament http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_the_Parliament - in Bucharest. Formerly the seat of Romania's Soviet-era president Nicolae Ceaușescu, the world's largest civilian building now accommodates the eastern head quarters of the European Union, including a unified presidency that has taken over the role of EU Parliament supremo. To add to this, President Blair is also a cardinal of the Roman Catholic church with ambitions to de-secularise the European Project and create a new Holy Roman Empire. Fortunately, however, these aspirations are beyond the scope of this particular synopsis.
Readers are no doubt wondering how the events I have described came about, and the story is marvellously straightforward. Awakening one morning a British prime minister of the near future took it upon herself to transform the country's unsustainable welfare state and wider public sector. Her government went, somewhat like the Starship Enterprise, where no recent British administration had dared go before and dismissed vast swathes of the kleptocracy, including those on the payroll of the state media, which had grown obese at the public expense. In short, the nation's finances were radically over-hauled, along with the benefits system. The effects of this were nothing short of miraculous. Seeing their mistress and her comrades living within their means, the British public soon followed suit. Those unaccustomed to such a lifestyle started to migrate in vast numbers - a subject I shall deal with later - and the country assumed a state of good governance never before experienced in its history. In short, a London banker's word was his bond, and not someone else's.
Unfortunately whilst Albion was liberated from financial repression and the other ills of a nation living beyond its means, the so-called "New British Problem" was exported to other parts of Europe as the engine of the unreal economy, with its propensities for public maladministration, property speculation, booms and busts, and labour market distortions relentlessly moved eastwards. Soon the citizens of Eastern Europe were complaining of similar evils to those their British counterparts had once done, including mass migration by Western Europeans, particularly from over-crowded areas in Southern England, and accompanying benefits tourism. Meanwhile, a Campaign to Protect Rural Eastern Europe, or CPREE, was established amidst clamorous support for wholesale importation of the early 21st century British planning system.
At this point, a spiritually ascended cadre of enlightened European leaders, including Vaclav Havel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A1clav_Havel , took it upon themselves to instigate the second coming of Angela Merkel, who restored order and admitted Ukraine to the greater EU family.
