A celebration of austerity

The government’s spending cuts were the greatest thing to ever happen in this land. The government told us so on many occasions. The Prime Minister even took the time and trouble to write to every single household telling us how much money they’d saved by scrapping services.

 

A statue was commissioned to commemorate the government’s success, the austerity statue – a naked, famished child, clutching a food-bank token.

 

“We haven’t done enough to celebrate our achievements,” the Prime Minister complained. “What we’ve done is unprecedented, a 20% cut in NHS, 25% fewer police, schools closed, libraries abolished.”

 

“We should hold an Austerity Day,” the Minister for Austerity said, “a bank holiday, so that everyone in the kingdom can celebrate the success of the austerity project.”

 

“An additional Bank Holiday,” said the Minister for Business and Services, somewhat aghast, “but every Bank Holiday costs employers £10 billion in lost income, as a nation we can’t afford an additional holiday. Indeed, we should be thinking of cutting back on the ones we have.” 

The Prime Minister poo pooed his concerns. “Oh, what’s ten billion pounds, think of all the money we’ve saved. Why, we’re cutting the welfare bill by twelve billion pounds after lunch today, and I’ve a memo from the chief civil servant at the Ministry of defence staing that our defence budget cuts are so great they leave us “Dangerously exposed.”

 

“Even so, Prime Minister, I feel you may have misjudged the mood of the nation. If you have an austerity holiday there are certain types that will use the day to protest AGAINST austerity.”

 

“He’s right, Prime Minister,” the Minister for Crime and Injustice said, “just giving people an austerity day would be asking for trouble, the idea would only be workable if we forced people to support the day.”

 

“Forced people to support it?” the Prime Minister repeated. He could be somewhat slow on the uptake.

 

“I mean banning all protest and making it a crime not to actively support austerity.”

 

“Would that work?” the Prime Minister asked.

 

“Well,” the Minister for Crime and Injustice scribbled some calculations on the back of the biscuit menu, “it would cost somewhere in the region of £2 billion to police the day properly, but I’m sure you’ll agree that’s money well spent. We simply have enough police on the streets, arresting anyone not celebrating our achievements.”

 

“Excellent, I’m glad that’s agreed. A special Bank Holiday to celebrate Austerity – or else!”

There was much laughter at the Prime Minister’s signal that he had told a joke.

 

“A day of celebration is all very well,” said the Chancellor of the Exchequer, “but it is only one day. I have devised a plan to celebrate austerity on a permanent basis.”

 

“Excellent,” said the Prime Minister. “What’s the plan?”

 

“Elephants.”

 

“Elephants?”

 

“Elephants.”

 

“Is that a plan?” the Prime Minister asked, sounding confused, “or are you just repeating the word elephants?”

 

“The plan, Prime Minister, is to purchase 40,000 elephants, each of whom will be painted with a slogan celebrating our austere achievements, and sent to tour the kingdom.”

 

“Slogans celebrating our achievements?”

 

“You know, ’50 hospitals closed’, ‘150,000 made homeless’, ‘tuition fees trebled’.”

“But why 40,000 elephants?”

 

“Honestly Prime Minister, you’re slow out of the blocks today. One for each of our achievements.”

 

“Ah, of course. Okay, that’s agreed then, 40,000 elephants to be painted with slogans and sent on a tour of the kingdom. Well, I think it’s time for a tea and biscuit break, we’ve earned it. I’m quite excited about number 439 on the biscuit menu, OutOfThisWorld chocolate shortbread. All the ingredients are grown on the space station, apparently.”

 

“Grown in space?” said the Minister for Business and Services. “Why, it must cost a fortune to fly the ingredients back from there.”

 

“Over a thousand pound a biscuit.”

 

“A thousand pound a biscuit!” the Chancellor said. “Thank goodness you dropped Pickles from the Cabinet, that’s an austerity saving of hundreds of thousands.”

 

There was much laughter. Unlike the Prime Minister, the Chancellor’s jokes were generally appreciated without a signal.

 

After the biscuit break, the meeting continued in earnest.

 

People don’t appreciate what we’ve done,” the Minister for What’s left of Education complained, “I mean, it’s not easy to cut services when you’ve won an election on a Spend, Spend, Spend manifesto.”

 

“What are you proposing?” the Prime Minister asked.

“We should make the success of austerity undeniable, engrained in the very name of the nation.”

 

“Engrained in the name?”

 

“We should rebrand, change our country’s name to Austeria.”

 

“With respect, Prime Minister,” the Minister for Business and Services said, “rebranding the nation would cost a fortune. Not just for the government, but for businesses, why every address on every letterhead would have to change to include the name Austeria, every website address, why we’d even have to commission a new national anthem. You couldn’t do this for anything less than £30 billion.”

 

“Oh, pish, tosh,” the Prime Minister said, “why £30 billion is nothing, we’re cutting the defence budget by £40 billion later today, and this is a one-off.”

 

xxx

 

The austerity measures were introduced, 40,000 elephants were imported and sprayed with slogans. Soon every city, town and village in the nation was filled with the austerity message and elephant shit.

 

But in spite of all the government’s efforts, the deficit continue to rise to unprecedented levels.

 

“I don’t understand it,” the Prime Minister complained at the next Cabinet meeting, “Where’s all the money going? We’ve got hospitals without nurses, schools without teachers, aircraft carriers without aircraft, there’s nothing else to cut.”

 

“We could cut spending on austerity,” the Minister for Business and Services suggested.

 

“Surely you don’t mean cutting back on elephants?” the Chancellor said incredulously. “They take our message to the public.”

 

“We’ve no choice,” the Business Minister continued, “It’s either the elephants or cut back on MP’s expenses.”

 

“No!” the Chancellor shouted, “You can’t do that. My ducks need that yacht.”

 

(The story ends here, hereby saving on ink and energy).