What have the British ever done for us?

[Dan Dare]

The Scene: A darkened room with a very conspiratorial atmosphere. Basil and Harjit are seated at a table at one end of the room. Wee Willie, dressed in activist gear — green robes and a orange sash around his head — is standing by a plan on the wall. He is addressing an audience of about eight masked oppressed anti-colonialist activists. Their faces are partially hidden.

*****


Basil:

They've bled us white, the bastards. They've taken everything we had, not just from us, from our fathers and from our fathers' fathers.

Harjit:

And from our fathers' fathers' fathers.

Basil:

Yes.

Harjit:

And from our fathers' fathers' fathers' fathers.

Basil:

All right, Harjit. Don't labour the point. And what have they ever given us in return?

Baron Corvo:

The language? Universities?

Basil:

Oh yeah, yeah they gave us that. Yeah. That's true.

Masked Oppressed anti-Colonialist:

And the sanitation!

Harjit:

Oh yes... sanitation, Basil, you remember what Dublin used to be like.

Basil:

All right, I'll grant you that the railways and the sanitation are two things that the British have done...

Baron Corvo:

And the roads and ports...all the rest of the infrastructure as well

Basil:

(sharply) Well yes obviously the roads... the roads go without saying. But apart from the railways, the sanitation and the roads...

Another Masked Oppressed anti-Colonialist:

Newspapers...

Other Masked Voices:

Medicine... Education... Health...Industry

Basil:

Yes... all right, fair enough...

anti-Colonialist near front:

And the breweries...

Harjit:

Oh yes! True! We'd be lost without a decent bevvie!

Wee Willie:

Yeah. That's something we'd really miss if the British left, Basil.

Masked Oppressed anti-Colonialist at Back:

Public libraries!

Harjit:

And it's safe to walk in the streets at night now.


Yes, they certainly know how to keep order... (general nodding)... let's face it, they're the only ones who could in a place like this.

(more general murmurs of agreement)

Basil:

All right... all right... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and newspapers and public health and roads and a freshwater system and breweries and public order... what have the British done for us?

Baron Corvo:

Brought a peaceful United Ireland!

Harjit:

.... and India! They also invented Canada and Australia and all sorts of other neat places we can move to!

Basil:

(very angry, he's not having a good meeting at all) What!? Oh... (scornfully) a peaceful United Ireland and India, yes... oh bloody shut up!

[Basil Fawlty]

Very good presentation of your credentials as a true blue MPFC man. Unfortunately at the risk of appearing churlish I have two slight quibbles with this scenario.

1) harjit, or should I say, Dr. Aziz, has not been inducted into the movement yet. He's still entranced by Miss Quested and believes all the tripe about British justice and fair play. Of course you and I know different.

2.) your marvellous skit is completely fact-free.

[Charlie Robespierre]

A degree of English input was infused into Ireland, granted and in certain cases anyway objectionable only in the method of transmission. But "Britain" is quite different. It's a terror state not a "nation". Ye olde Soviet Union only this time with longetivity in which being British is akin to being infected with a mental disease, a disease originally propagated by the bankers of that era. Sometimes a lethal infection if the victim feels obliged to perish in some desert on the fevers' behalf.

I feel that in blessing the embattled English people with noted Irish reformers such as George Galloway we've fully discharged our own obligation towards the "benevolence" conferred upon us by the people over there. At least with such a progressive Gael at work, the terrorist state can be cast aside with greater expediency and a degree of clarity can be brought to English affairs, more quickly than what might otherwise be the case..

[Dan Dare]

George Galloway Irish?

I certainly hadn't been aware of that and, with the great man himself being born in Dundee, surely its only right that Celtic factionalism should not be allowed to cast a shadow on George's magnificent contributions. If he wishes to portray himself as authentically Hibernian when rattling the tin cup under the noses of the plastic paddies in Boston, or preening himself as part of the Tartan Barmy Army whilst on the stump for the sinecure post of Rector of Edinburgh University, or presenting himself as an honorary Paki while campaigning for the canonisation of Saddam Hussein, who are we to scoff?

[Errigal]

George Galloway Irish?

...

George Galloway is Irish only in the sense that he has an agile mind. He often mentions his Irish mother so I suppose he picked it up from her.

[Dynamic]

George Galloway once said he disliked the term "Celtic" as it made him feel "cold". Then he went onto say he's a person "of the world".

[Aryan Imperium]

A degree of English input was infused into Ireland, granted and in certain cases anyway objectionable only in the method of transmission. But "Britain" is quite different. It's a terror state not a "nation". Ye olde Soviet Union only this time with longetivity in which being British is akin to being infected with a mental disease, a disease originally propagated by the bankers of that era. Sometimes a lethal infection if the victim feels obliged to perish in some desert on the fevers' behalf.

I feel that in blessing the embattled English people with noted Irish reformers such as George Galloway we've fully discharged our own obligation towards the "benevolence" conferred upon us by the people over there. At least with such a progressive Gael at work, the terrorist state can be cast aside with greater expediency and a degree of clarity can be brought to English affairs, more quickly than what might otherwise be the case..

As far as I am aware Galloway is Scotch and as far as the Irish are concerned they have been taught English and should be bloody grateful for that!