Boats for Bankers

Thanks to the ongoing Osbornomic miracle, Britain is booming so loudly that it can afford to recommence empire-building in the Middle East. The authorities in Bahrain, whose record on democracy and human rights has much of the flexibility and force which Whitehall is denied by the nitpickings of meddlesome Euro-woggery, have agreed to subsidise the construction of a Royal Navy base, the permanent costs of which will be borne by the ever-obliging wartime British taxpayer. A suitful of stale air at the Ministry for Wogs, Frogs and Huns has been babbling about expanding thirty-year footprints, and the Minister for Wog-Bombing has been trumpeting that Britain is now in the Gulf for the long term, where it can keep an eye on the mad mullahs while stomping Johnny Isis into line. All in all, this policy seems a healthy contrast to our previous long-term presence in the Middle East, which resulted in the rise of Johnny Isis and helped to get the mad mullahs thinking that they might require a nuclear deterrent.