Pride and Industry

Not content with deposing the Old Queen shortly before her ascension to the right hand of that great Englishman God, the Republic of Barbados is plotting to victimise an upstanding member of the master race because of his family history. Richard Grosvenor Plunkett Ernle-Ernle-Drax, a far-right Conservative MP and descendant of the pioneering Caribbean slaver Sir James Drax, is under threat of demands for reparations by the Barbadian government, despite having kept the old plantation going as a symbol of reconciliation. As a youthful republic, Barbados is perhaps unaware that patriotic pride in one's ancestors tends to preclude excessive attention to their little peccadilloes, and Grosvenor Plunkett Ernle-Ernle-Drax has duly denied all responsibility for things that happened centuries ago; although he is no doubt as happy as anyone of his pedigree to take credit for Waterloo, Stalingrad and the Somme. Grosvenor Plunkett Ernle-Ernle-Drax has apparently met with the republic's prime minister to discuss the matter of reparations, and it is to be hoped that he was treated with compassion. So occupied is the poor fellow's mind that he recently forgot to declare his inheritance of an estate in Barbados valued at five and a quarter million.