We're Not the NHS, You Know

A report by a quango of five retired military personnel has held out some hope that Daveybloke and his Cuddly Conservatives may yet win the next election even if the constituency reform scam fails to come off. The Government need only continue its present policy (which may yet include the sacking of some of Hague's Heroes from the Libyan campaign) to ensure that the Falkland Islands will be a "plum ripe for the picking" now that the Argies have aligned themselves with the Heathen Chinee and are beginning to demonstrate a certain insolence. The quingo also claims that Britain is in a weak position to defend its interests around the globe, despite seven years' enthusiastic participation in the War on the Abstract Noun, and that threats might be forthcoming from Afghanistan despite our extensive attempts at pacification. Further threats are brewing from North Korea, Pakistan, Russia and China; and even our senior partners in the Battle of Britain are beginning to express scepticism as to the size and power of Liam Fox's battle organ; if one did not know better, one might almost think that Trident could fail to deter. And yet all could be made peaceful by a piddling increase of fifty per cent in the national warmongering budget. "To pretend a further 1% is not affordable is absurd," spluttered the vice-president of the United Kingdom National Defence Association, which commissioned the report, on the grounds that fifty per cent of the present national warmongering budget equals one per cent of GDP and makes for a less absurd and more affordable soundbite.