By Fairy Nuff, Our Pantomime [aka Westminster] Correspondent

Our Betamax recorder is temporarily buggered, so here's the text of our Yuletide offering to our readers.

The cast (in order of appearance)

Scrooge – Scotland
Marley – Alastair Darling
Tiny Tim – Welfare State
Bob Cratchit – John Swinney
Fezziwig – Donald Dewar
Christmas Past – Tony Blair
Christmas Present – Chairchoob
Christmas Future – Wullie Rennie

The scene - a croft in Scotlandshire, with associated oil storage facilities and luxury accommodation (by London standards)

The date - undetermined, but probably between 1843 and 2014.

Scrooge was a typical Scotchman – tight-fisted, ill-tempered. A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, he had driven hard bargains like making sure that most of the Empire’s supply of coal and paraffin was under his control.

Knowing that paraffin oil was an excellent laxative, he meant to corner that market for himself, and force his southern cousins to pay exorbitant prices. Thus they would become bankrupt while they shat themselves. But how to make them pay most? A separate company? Some kind of joint venture? He was Undecided, and hated being unsure of himself. “Bah!” “Humbug!” he was wont to cry at such times.

Today had been particularly discombombulating. He had been visited by a pair of carolling Blairs, both urging him to put a copper or two into their charitable appeals, and he had been particularly offended by McDougall's idea that he join his "Better with Bankers" Fund.

"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.

"Plenty of them", said McDougall, "but they are full of poor people. Only in Iceland do they jail bankers", he added.

"That Nordic model sounds pretty good to me, then", said Scrooge, but McDougall reminded him of the terrors that would befall Scotlandshire, if it went down that route.

"Remember Grýla, the Icelandic monster that scours the streets before Xmas looking for bad children to devour and thus cut Santa's present bill in times of austerity."

Bob Cratchit shivered as he heard that. Not that he was cold. As Scrooge's Finance Secretary, he was well paid, and his office was kept warm. But he knew that if Scrooge went into partnership with McDougall and his cronies, then the future Welfare State of his beloved Tiny Tim would be doon the chanty. This Xmas Eve could seal Tiny Tim's fate. His future lay in Scrooge's hands.

Scrooge walked back through the freezing fog to his croft, deviating slightly to pick up his meagre evening meal - a couple of deep fried Mars bars and a bottle of Irn-Bru.

Reaching his front door, he stood astounded as he gazed at the door knocker. A chill gripped his heart and the batter on the Mars bars. Let it be borne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Darling, his former Financial Director, for many a year. He had assumed that he was in his accustomed comatose state. Let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change - not a knocker, but Darling's eyebrows.

Darling's eyebrows. They had a dismal light about them, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again.

Inside, Scrooge was soon settled comfortably and reading the newly arrived copy of the bestseller "Scotland's Future". Gradually, however, he became aware of a dark brooding presence in the room. Casting a nervous glance over his shoulder, he realised that the ghostly apparition of Darling was raising itself into a somnambulist state.

"Alastair!", exclaimed Scrooge, "I thought you long dead, after your disastrous affair with the financial sector - and that long chain of debt that you carry, it seems to be disappearing link by link as I watch! Tell me this isn't so. Surely you, of all people, should be burning in the fiery pits of Hell and not suddenly appearing to scare decent folk."

"Geraldine", moaned the spectre of Darling (who had always been crap with details like names or regulation of banks), "I have been brought back to life by Gideon Osborne to warn you of the dire consequences of not entering a partnership with Westminster PLC. As to my disappearing chains, that's due to a really clever scheme called Quantitative Easing which removes debt by increasing inflation and punishing the poor yet again. Neat, eh?

"I have come to warn you that you will be visited by three Spirits, who will give you a last chance to repent your nasty splittist thoughts."

"Laphroaig, Bowmore and Bruichladdich?" asked Scrooge hopefully.

"Miserable sinner", boomed the spectre. "You should know that all the revenues from such things are required to reduce the balance of payments. As those on the Isle of Todday know, there will be no Whisky Galore while the struggle against socialism continues .." (At this point Darling broke off, and slipped off under the door, realising that he was in the wrong book.)

Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door by which the Ghost had entered. It was double-locked, as he had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say 'Humbug!' but stopped at the first syllable. And being, from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose; went straight to bed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant.

---

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 Charles Dickens : A Christmas Carol Chapter 1

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