Not Just a Piece of Paper

As trivial fripperies like the NHS and the social safety net are sliced away and the core of true Britishness is laid bare in all its Duncan Smith greatness of spirit and intellect, respecters of tradition and pageantry will no doubt rejoice that the practice of recording laws on bits of dead animal may yet be retained. The House of Donors decided seventeen years ago to start using paper instead of vellum for the printing of acts of parliament; and now that the House of Expenses Claimants has decided to put the decision into practice the traditional squeals of rage are echoing around Whitehall. No doubt there are comparatively few MPs who would rather kill a tree for writing materials than slaughter a calf, particularly when the latter option lightens the public purse by eighty thousand a year. Meanwhile the rest of us may count ourselves fortunate that the skins of flayed proles would be too coarse and colourful for our lords and masters to use instead.