I know what you are thinking, you're thinking: if only there was something to take the mind off the unimaginably large financial hole that the world's bankers have dug, with a little help from ourselves. If only a distraction existed to help us forget, if only temporarily, that we will all soon be asking each other for some spare change please and reminiscing about the good old days, before the invention of money, when if you wanted to eat a chicken for dinner, you had to wrestle a dinosaur to the ground and pull one from its jaws. If only, you are thinking, we could have something to amuse and appal us, something to get behind or protest against. What we need, in short, is a good old fashioned war. I realise that we are currently engaged in two wars but they are stale and a bit dull, as there is no chance that the fighting might impinge on our lives on these shores, except for the unfortunates that are actually doing the fighting. No, what we need is a war that could extinguish the home fires here in good old Blighty.
(While I think of it, pensioners - this winter, if you can't afford your new affordable energy tariffs, simply set fire to your home in order to keep warm. But I digress.)
If we could only find an excuse to start a fight with, lets say, Iran, then we would really have something to occupy our thoughts while we gawp at daytime TV, in between going to the dole office. If only there was a good reason to start bombing a nuclear power, then the bowel clenching fear of imminent Armageddon would relieve us of the pain of staying awake all night, worrying about not being able to pay the mortgage. If we started a war with Iran, we could stay up all night worrying we might not have a house left to pay a mortgage on.
To that end, a fantastic excuse has just been concocted - I mean discovered - by America, a country that could pick a fight in an empty room. They would have us believe that their intelligence community have uncovered a plot to assassinate a Saudi official while eating his dinner. That the phrase "intelligence community" is an oxymoron on both sides of the Atlantic is indisputable. It's amazing that they can put on their own socks, yet they apparently found put that a second hand car salesman in Texas had masterminded a plot to enlist hit men from Mexico's drug cartels to put a bombe surprise on the menu of a Washington eatery that was frequented by the Saudi Ambassador to the United States. And it's all Iran's fault. Like many countries from that region, the Saudis are not very nice people, but crucially, they are OUR not very nice people and so are given the protection in America and here that befits an ally of the nation. We do this because they are our friends. And they have a ton of money. And they have all of the oil in the world that hasn't washed up on the beach in New Zealand. I am certain, however, that these two facts have not affected our opinion of them.
Iranian premier Mahmoud I'madinthehead has said that this is all just a silly misunderstanding, explaining "It weren't us, we ain't done nuffink." Well, he would say that wouldn't he? We must act while we've still got an army to use as a distraction to troubles at home. The natives are getting restless. They'll start demanding an election soon and at this rate the Coalition is in for a pasting.
There's no time to lose. What's the use of worrying? It never was worth while, so let's pack up our troubles in our old kit bag and smile, smile, smile.