A Sinister Proposal

The surrender monkeys across the British Channel are making noises about co-operating with the mainland on nuclear weapons. France maintains four submarines, which are paid for and run by France; and Britain maintains four more, which are paid for by Britain and run by the United States, in order to deter mad mullahs and suicide bombers from meddling in Iraq or blowing up innocents on public transport. The Glorious Successor has recently proposed reducing Britain's stockpile from four submarines to three, apparently in the belief that Britain would then be only seventy-five per cent in violation of its commitments to work towards disarmament; but today he stated that as long as other countries are trying to acquire nuclear deterrents, he does not see the case for withdrawing any incentive such countries might have for pointing their deterrents at us. The French president, Nicolas de Racaille, noted that "it is our assessment that there can be no situation in which the vital interests of either of our two nations could be threatened without the vital interests of the other also being threatened", as may be seen in the case of Iraq, where British national interests would have been incomparably better served by following the French example and staying out.

Daveybloke's Cuddly Minister for War and Empire has referred to Britain and France as "Europe's only two nuclear powers", despite Britain's obvious status as a North American nuclear power and France's notorious status as a French nuclear power. He plans to invite the French to state formally "what they expect from their relationship with the United Kingdom", which should make jolly reading for somebody. However, a British official has dismissed any idea of sharing the burdens of "deterrence" with the French as outrageously non-tough for the middle of an election campaign.