THE ANT’S TALE
and the
Rest of the world version
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long,
building and improving his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.
The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
A classic story with a moral.
THE END
The U.K. version
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long,
building and improving his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.
So far, so good, eh?
A social worker finds the shivering grasshopper,
calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant
should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate,
like the grasshopper, are cold and starving.
The BBC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper;
with cuts to a video of the ant in his comfortable warm home
with a table laden with food.
The British press informs people that they should be ashamed
that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so,
while others have plenty.
The Labour Party, Greenpeace, Animal Rights and
The Grasshopper Council of GB demonstrate in front of the ant’s house.
The BBC, interrupting a cultural festival special from Notting Hill with breaking news,
broadcasts a multicultural choir singing “We shall overcome”.
Ken Livingstone rants in an interview with Trevor McDonald
that the ant got rich off the backs of grasshoppers,
and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay “his fair share”
and increase the charge for ants to enter inner London .
In response to pressure from the media,
the Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti Discrimination Act,
retroactive to the beginning of the summer.
The ant’s taxes are reassessed.
He is taken to court and fined for failing to hire grasshoppers
as builders for the work he was doing on his home
and an additional fine for contempt when he told the court
the grasshopper did not want to work.
The grasshopper is provided with a council house, financial aid
to furnish it and an account with a local taxi firm to ensure he can be socially mobile.
The ant’s food is seized and re-distributed to the more needy members of society,
in this case the grasshopper. Without enough money to buy more food,
to pay the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes,
the ant has to downsize and start building a new home.
The local authority takes over his old home and
utilises it as a temporary home for asylum seeking cats who
had hijacked a plane to get to Britain as they had to share their country of origin with mice.
On arrival they tried to blow up the airport because of Britain 's apparent love of dogs.
The cats had been arrested for the international offence of hijacking and attempted bombing
but were immediately released because the police had fed them
pilchards instead of salmon whilst in custody.
Initial moves to then return them to their own country were abandoned because
it was feared they would face death by the mice.
The cats devise and start a scam to obtain money from people’s credit cards.
A Panorama special shows the grasshopper finishing up the last of the ant’s food,
though spring is still months away,
while the council house he is in crumbles around him
because he hasn’t bothered to maintain it.
He is shown to be taking drugs. Inadequate government funding
is blamed for the grasshopper’s drug ‘illness’.
The cats seek recompense in the British courts for their treatment since arrival in the UK .
The grasshopper gets arrested for stabbing an old dog
during a burglary to get money for his drugs habit.
He is imprisoned but released immediately because he has been in custody for a few weeks.
He is placed in care of the probation service to monitor and supervise him.
With in a few weeks he has killed a guinea pig in a botched robbery.
A commission of enquiry, that will eventually cost £10 million to state the obvious, is set up.
Additional money is put into funding a drug rehabilitation scheme for grasshoppers
and legal aid for lawyers representing asylum seekers is increased.
The asylum-seeking cats are praised by the government for
enriching Britain 's multicultural diversity
and dogs are criticised by the government for failing to befriend cats.
The grasshopper dies of a drugs overdose.
The usual sections of the press blame it on the obvious failure
of government to address the root cause of despair
arising from the social inequity and his traumatic experience of prison.
They call for the resignation of a minister.
The cats are paid a million pounds each because their rights were infringed
when the government failed to inform them there were mice in the UK .
The ant, the dog and the victims of the hijacking, the bombing, the burglaries and robberies
have to pay an additional percentage on their credit cards to cover losses,
their taxes are increased to pay for law and order and they are told that
they will have to work beyond 65 because of a shortfall in government funds.
Meanwhile back on the council estate;
the abandoned house is taken over by a gang of immigrant spiders,
who promptly set up a marijuana growing operation
and terrorize the community.
THE END