Waesp Sting

As the Redistributionists' Annual Unfortunates' Outing and Picnic rolls into its drunken motion and incoherent mutterings, (succeeding the equivalent non-event put on by the Liberationists to an enraptured audience of eleven last week), a certain amount of controversy now swills around the eminent personage of Cuðbert the Waesp - a seasoned veteran of the Witangemot ranks. The timing of these new allegations - which appear to bring into question his integrity and squeaky-cleanness - couldn't be more inconvenient for the Faction which comprises King Alhfrith's Loyal Opposition in the House of Boundless Folly. Poor Edweird the Milliner: it's such a shame.

Cuðbert the Waesp is an oddly interesting character, and has graced the benches of the Witangemot for many centuries, earning himself a reputation as a purveyor of the kind of substance used to lubricate the axles of the Kingdom's carts. He is of a Nordic persuasion, and has made himself remarkably popular among the many adherents to the sacred Eddas, adopting their bizarre causes as his own, blending seamlessly like some Proteus into their culture, jollying along their social and political interests. He's best described as ubiquitous; there's seldom an event in his local ward or in the Northumbrian Witangemot where his presence is not easily discerned. He has ten thousand fingers in as many pies.

Surprisingly enough however, such an effective champion of the good Redistributionist values of Equality, Fairness and Biscuit hasn't been a total stranger to allegations of shadowy practices in the past; he's been associated with the provision of valuable services of convenience for certain wealthy and disadvantaged exotic individuals from the Viking lands, who've wished to leapfrog certain bureaucratic queues in order to gain citizenship in the Beautiful Kingdom, and to be signed up to the salutary services of the Northumbrian Herbal Service.

So it came as something of a shock for the allegations to surface among certain soothsayers (but not Guardy-Ann, for some strange reason) that the Honourable Cuðbert the Waesp is being investigated for certain huge amounts of Holy Groats which have miraculously appeared in his own private coffers. He claims to have no knowledge of it - or how it managed to arrive in his own treasury. And this Cat is quite inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. In fact, I'd go as far as to declare that I know where that money came from. One must remember that the entire economic strategy of the Redistributionists rests upon a firm and fixed belief in the irrational folklore of their culture.

The fairies put that vast amount of cash into his treasure chest when he was fast asleep. But don't tell anyone that I told you - they'd never believe you..