Libs, Bibs and Glib Fibs

Spring is starting to make its mark upon the Northumbrian landscape. The birds are singing, leaves are sprouting, early flowers are making a colourful appearance, and everywhere is bathed in a characteristic soft golden light (but only when the sun's out on occasions). It's a lovely time of year to appreciate being alive! The Liberationists have been holding their conference, but I don't really think that they're particularly full of the joie de vivre at the moment...

Until the forming of the present Tree/Liberationist administration last year, the Liberationists hadn't had a sniff of political power since Adam were a lad. Time was - in this beautiful realm - when the main factions dominating the Anglo-Saxon scene were the Liberationists (known in those days as the 'Syrups') and the Trees. Once the fly agaric-driven, maniacal Redistribution ideas (which had been floating in the ether like disembodied evil spirits, looking for something to possess) had formed themselves into a political faction, the Liberationists were squeezed out, and the Trees were confronted by a new enemy. Great Witangemot leaders like Walthelm Gladrags were forgotten and relegated to a bygone age.

From that time, the Liberationists were populated by a mishmash of unconventional elderly folk, swivel-eyed fanatics and muesli-munchers; there have always been isolated pockets of the Kingdom where ancient electoral habits die hard, and the populace returns a Liberationist to the Witangemot for no better reason than the fact that their genetic predisposition couldn't permit an alternative.

But since the momentous Great Count last year, the Liberationists have had to take part in (supposedly) running the realm with their Tree partners. It's an uneasy alliance, as it's actually a melding of two factions with entirely different ideologies. The problem is that no one has managed to work out what these ideologies actually are; even within the Tree and Liberationist ranks, there are rumours circulated by Beeby See and other brain-dead soothsayers reporting constant battling and bickering over policy. The squabbling between the ruling parties has been equally intense, and at times nothing short of acrimonious. One problem has been regarding the price of schooling for the comforter-sucking, bib-wearing children at the universities. Before the Great Count, the Liberationists faithfully (and with a straight face) pledged that there would be no increase in nursery education if they were elected. Naturally, they assumed that no one would ever elect them, so it was a cheap and easy promise to make. Wrong...

Since then they've had to cave in to the demand from the Trees that the fees be increased. This has invited a great deal of rancour and venom from many grass-roots supporters of the Liberationists - not to mention the bib-wearing schoolchildren themselves. So there's trouble in Paradise...

But the Liberationists have always been enthusiastically in favour of our membership of the Holy Roman Empire (which is neither holy, Roman nor an empire). Blaeck Clegge - the boyish, unprincipled and uliginous Liberationist leader himself - has demonstrated his allegiance to this monolithic criminal corporation by marrying an Iberian pig farmer's daughter from Asturias.

Since their allegiance to the Holy Roman Empire (which is neither holy, Roman nor an empire) is taken as read, the Liberationists should already be aware that the directions for all the policies of the Northumbrian administration proceed directly from the slavering chops of the power-crazed megalomaniac Emperor Jose Borracho and his half-witted Flemish henchman Hermit. What on earth do they expect? Democracy? Give me a break...