Boris Johnson, United Kingdom Foreign Secretary and all round honest broker, took the airwaves via the Today programme this morning to promise the UK will send £350M a week in relief aid to the British Virgin Islands.
The islands are just one of many areas devastated by the current sequence of hurricanes tearing up the Caribbean and southern states of the USA.
When asked by a sympathetic John Humphrys where the government would get the money from in the era of a deeply tightened public spending belt, Mr Johnson had a ready answer.
“Well John, um, ah, like Icarus sailing too close to the fiery molten orb of love, and feeling the keen sense of ardour and passion engorge his temporal lobes with the urgency of springtime for Hitler and Germany, so too will Her Majesty’s ever sympathetic and diligent representatives take the £350M a week we send in scandalous brown paper envelopes to the EU to pay Herr Farage’s ever expanding Euro paypacket, now, now, now…”
He went on like this for some time and waiting music was played until it was judged he was almost done, then,
“…that we are free of these onerous and unjustified fiscal responsibilities like Medusa seducing a mirror with locks of tangled serpents whose tongues do flick the air for scent of the staked lamb send £350M a week instead to the British Virgin Islands.”
This answer seemed to satisfy Mr Humphrys who saves his most intense grillings these days for anyone not in government.
Asked why such a large amount would be needed to rebuild, Mr Johnson replied,
“There are homes of people of lower financial capacity to rebuild. But it’s also an absolute mountain of tax haven chicanery and how can we continue to justify austerity unless extremely wealthy people have somewhere to evade their taxes?”
