Fit For A Prince

It appears that the hubristic impudence of the politicos here in the lovely Kingdom of Northumbria knows no bounds. I was minding my own business this morning - you know, the usual stuff - marking my territory, catching mice and tenderly administering a torn ear to an aspirational young feline who had overweening designs on my patch - when my pal Feaxede the Fox came loping excitedly towards me. My young rival disappeared sharpish when he saw Feaxede coming, who had surely obtained some fresh and steaming piece of hot political gossip - I could feel it in my water. Sure enough, he animatedly told me that he'd just heard that the Great Assize had reached its Solemn Verdict.

When I enquired what this grand-sounding affair was, he told me that the Witangemot had pronounced its judgement upon His Royal Highness Prince Ruprecht Evil-Merodach - the venerable and fabulously wealthy owner of seventeen million soothsaying enterprises. There's been an in-depth witch hunt investigation by a cadre of impartially partial, illiberally liberal politicos, who've had their knives sharpened for Rupie ever since he decided to switch his allegiance. Having supported the bellicose and mendacious (but so smooth-talking) Redistributionist Tondvig the Blur (and for fifteen nanoseconds, his psychopathically jovial successor Guffmund the Brown) - and then pledged his allegiance to Dagwald Caedmeron's Tree camp, it seems that Rupie trod on a few toes. So sad. It naturally follows that the campaign against the Great Prince was primarily dominated by the Redistributionists themselves, and during the fifteen million sessions of the Great Hearings (held at taxpayers' expense, naturally - with sumptuous banquets every lunchtime), all manner of accusations flew around concerning the misdemeanours of Rupie's drudges, who allegedly had listened in to the conversations of Poor Unfortunates and reported their findings to their soothsaying masters, who kindly passed the tasty gossip to the discerning and sophisticated Northumbrian public. Shock horror, terror and fruitcake.

Following a feverish campaign of fear-mongering, loathing and biscuit - suitably whipped up by the politicos and their loyal allies, the righteous Beeby See and her bilious and pox-marked stooge Guardy-Ann, the Noble Prince was demonised, paraded as a pariah and generally treated with contempt, opprobrium and disgrace. One ringleader of the persecutors - Wart's Son the Fat - decreed to the sound of a tolling bell that the Prince was no longer fit to administer his soothsaying enterprises. Nobody laughed.

I thought it was wonderfully ironic that a team of Redistributionist inadequates - who'd never done a day's productive work in their lives, but had graced the taverns and mead houses of then Kingdom at taxpayers' expense and lorded it over the population, deciding what was Good For Them by passing myriads of laws in a bid to criminalise every normal human being - had decided to pronounce such a verdict...