The Money Tree
March 15, 2013“Dave, you’ve got to stop telling people about the Money Tree.” Dave sat back in his chair and smiled the smile of the well-fed and contented. “I thought it was a good line,” he said.
“Well, yes, but…”
“The first rule of the Money Tree is, you don’t talk about the Money Tree,” Nick smirked.
“That’s Fight Club, Oikey, and… It’s not true. George. Tell him.”
“Um…” George said, looking a bit shifty. “Look, where did you think we were getting £375 billion from for Quantitative Easing? Conjuring it from thin air? I mean to say! Why do you think there’s half an acre of walled garden outside guarded by the bloody SAS?” Nick and Dave both looked like they’d been slapped in the face with a wet kipper. George carried on, in the tone you’d use speaking to a couple of small and rather backwards children, “I go out into the garden on Tuesdays with a couple of the SAS lads, we fill a wheelbarrow, and then the boys backpack it round to the Bank of England. I thought you knew?”
“But… but that’s fantastic!” Nick said, bouncing in his chair. “If we’ve got an actual, real, money tree, well there are no limits. We could… abolish student loans altogether and reinstate student grants! Abolish the bedroom tax without even bothering with a mansion tax! Increase pensions by RPI instead of screwing them with CPI. Increase benefits by the rate of inflation! Abolish ATOS and give disabled people what they actually need instead of what we think we might be able to afford if we don’t mind a few of them living in squalor and poverty… OMG we could have full employment! Build council houses! Take people off the dole and give them actual jobs, doing stuff!!!”
George pressed the panic button and the nurse came in with Nick’s sedative.
“Right,” Dave said, looking grim and determined. He strode from the room and George hesitated for a moment, torn between the fun of watching Oikey fitted with his white jacket and worry about what Iggle Piggle might be getting up to. Then he heard the garden door open and ran. Surely he was just grabbing his own wheelbarrow, right?
“Stand back!” Faced with a direct order the SAS men had no choice. George was yelling “Noooooooooo!” but Dave’s hand was already on the axe. “Do you really think,” he grunted between strokes, “that we were screwing the poor just because we’d run out of cash?”
So there we have it, my tenth and final post contributing to Krishnan Guru-Murthy’s #twittermillion effort for Red Nose day. If you have enjoyed it, or any of the others, I’d be hugely grateful if you’d click here and donate a few quid to help people in need both in Africa and here in the UK: https://my.rednoseday.com/sponsor/wendybradley. Thanks so much.
tiintax 
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