“Crack!” An ill aimed shot rings out in the still night air from Nu-Labour’s zealous big guns – and with a flurry of feathers, another flock of Banker-Birdies rises up into the jet steam and migrates to warmer roostings.

Labour’s class warfare sharp shooters want to end the practice of old ladies in Threadneedle Street feeding the Banker-Birdies healthy titbits of a cool million pounds every time they earn their owners twenty million pounds; they had forgotten just how mobile pigeons are. These are not homing pigeons, primed to return to the roost no matter how difficult the route – these are young, fit, unencumbered, Internet versed, jet stream cruising, global pigeons. So far, the colony of such Banker-Birdies in the tax free haven of the Virgin Islands has increased by 18 per cent over the past year, none of them so much as winged.

Once there, up at 5am, fresh from their work-out, they will have switched from steering investment into healthy fledgling businesses in the UK into the black art of Distressed Bond Trading, betting on which economy will fold first, for there are fortunes to be made there at the moment. These guys are experts on the UK market, they have spent years studying the form in the home country – guess which economy will interest them most? The City was providing a quarter of all HMRCs corporate tax receipts. If there is another 20 million, and the rest, to be made for their employers, they will be doing it from the warm and picturesque skyscrapers in Off-shore land, safe from the short sighted Labour guns.

Tullett Prebon, a broker that arranges trades between banks and employs 700 people in the Square Mile, has begun to deliver on that relocation threat. The company said that it “will seek to facilitate, where possible and appropriate, relocation to the company’s other offices around the world which have more certain taxation regimes.”

Property specialists in the ‘high-end’ housing market here in France are reporting a bumper crop of fine Chateaux sold to ex-patriots.

Altis, a £1 billion hedge fund company with 35 staff, has relocated to Jersey, leaving only a small presence in London. Stephen Hedgecock, a partner, said: “The UK model is broken. “It’s not just the 50 per cent rate — it’s National Insurance, the treatment of pensions … everything. It’s just a ridiculous amount of taxation.”

Before they even hang their curtains, lap tops will be switched on, and they will be studying their racing bible, Moody’s, looking for any sign of weakness, a grain of profit dropped, as investors flee UK Government gilts. Once loyal pigeons of the UK, happy to contribute to the Exchequer, they will turn into the Governments worst nightmare – scavengers, carrion birds, tearing apart the carcass of the UK economy.

Moody’s has now taken to monitoring ‘social unrest‘ as the means of calculating credit ratings.

“In those countries whose debt has increased significantly, and especially those whose debt has become unaffordable, the need to rein in deficits will test social cohesiveness. The test will be starker as growth disappoints and interest rates rise.” It said the main obstacle for fiscal consolidation plans would be signs not necessarily of economic strength but of “political and social tension”.

Political and social tension – Old Holborn’s predicted revolution grows ever closer. More devastating for Nu-Labour, it is not just the birds at the top of the tree that they have succeeded in scattering – those who could afford to ignore the stagnant housing market, leave behind property worth half a million or so, and flee before British Airways go on strike; they have ruffled the feathers of their ground roosting core voters too. Those who have nothing to lose by flying out.

The solid, dependable, hard working men and women of Teeside are being lured out to the warmer climes in the wake of the Corus disaster. Australia has a perennial need for men toughened in the steel furnaces who know how to do an honest day’s hard graft. These are not the high-flying privileged birds that the cull was supposed to take out. These are the core Labour vote. Perhaps they will also be leaving unsold a humble abode in the crowded ‘back ginnels’ of Redcar, but that will be a small price to pay for a fresh start in a country that appreciates and rewards them; perhaps they will take their entire extended family with them, perhaps they will leave behind the grand parents who will never forgive Nu-Labour for chasing their sons and daughters, grand-sons and grand-daughters 12,000 miles away, out of daily contact. Either way, a lot of votes will be culled from Vera Baird’s constituency.

A total of 127,000 honest, hard working voters flew out of Britain last year. All of them will qualify for the title of ‘non-dependency’, otherwise the countries that they landed in would not have accepted them. Every last one of them will either have sufficient funds removed from the British economy, by dint of savings, or a lucky pre-crash sale, to support themselves indefinitely, or they will be skilled, relatively young, hard working individuals who can contribute growth and strength to which ever roost they have flown to.

600,000 cuckoos flew into the UK in the same period, who will between them require support, housing, tolerance, understanding, education, protection, and time to find their feet.

The only bullet to find its target is the one lodged firmly in Nu-Labour’s foot.

1
Shannon O’Hara
December 16, 2009 at 18:22

I rather like living in England(UK).

While there are people who might enjoy living day-after-day in the Virgin Islands or similar (where they don’t have proper weather, apart from the odd hurricane), I suspect that many will pause and think, faced with the choice of untold wealth and being effective exiles from civilisation.

Untold wealth is always nice but it doesn’t stack up against the sheer pleasure of all the pointless, eccentric things we enjoy here day-after-day, which make us smile, often condescendingly, to the fury of foreigners, and know that we are ‘more unique’(sic) than other countries.

The Geordies will, of course, face a serious language problem but, no doubt, the Aussies will teach their children different.

We have faced the ‘Brain Drain’ issue before, but we seem to have dealt with it, at least reasonably, adequately.

Perhaps, we shall again.

2
Saul
December 16, 2009 at 19:20

The surprising thing for me is the silence of the Conservative Party on the Corus issue. If ever they had a chance to get a foothold in this area, here it is. Or is the whole thing already a done deal?

3
john ward
December 16, 2009 at 19:27