The Right Sort of Foreigner

Achievements long in the making are often the hardest to let go; and having spent the past decade kicking people out of their houses, it's only natural that the Government should be in no particular hurry to dismantle that particular triumph. In a happy sign of continuity during these turbulent times, the Tumbledown Tessie administration has followed the natural inclinations both of its dead-eyed warden and of her former Cabinet colleagues among the Liberal Democrats by downsizing its promises and making its usual courageous decision to protect wealth creators against the ravages of redistributive taxation. In a tentative try at combining her wogs-out obsession with an appearance of caring about the human litter defacing Britain's real estate, the dead-eyed warden last year pledged to impose a charge on foreign property speculators and use the money for reducing homelessness; however, the empty suit at the Treasury has decided on a much smaller charge than anticipated, cutting the likely benefits by two-thirds. Fortunately, of course, the problem is far from urgent: the Tumbledown Tessie administration has set itself a rather relaxed target of eight years in which to eliminate homelessness, presumably in the hope that a few bracing winters will help simplify the matter into a question of disposal rather than warehousing.