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- US Postal Service to become Charles III Post Office (C3PO)
- Indie Band Vampire Weekend proscribed for terrorism
- Captain Commonwealth joins MAGBA
- EU to join UK shock!
- Tender process announced for Rushmore redevelopment
- Lord John Marbury mercy dash
For Our American
Cousins
First in the queue to join the United Kingdom of Greater Britain and Northern Ireland.
Dear Americans: change is never easy. There will be adjustments. There will certainly be better spelling. But the Provisional Government of Greater Britain welcomes you warmly to our Brave New World.
A short guide to peaceful readmission
We understand that some of you may be anxious. You have had a republic for quite a long time now, and habits can form. MAGBA is here to reassure you that readmission to the British family will be gentle, constitutional, and, where appropriate and deserved, accompanied by biscuits.
No one is asking you to abandon liberty, energy, invention, or optimism. We are simply suggesting that these qualities might flourish even more splendidly if placed under the light supervision of a well-established grammatical syntax, restraints on public volume, and a harmless ceremonial monarch.
Foreign Policy: rejoining polite society
You will no longer need to pretend to be Canadian when entering restaurants abroad. This alone should be worth serious consideration.
MAGBA will also introduce the radical principle that allies should occasionally be consulted before major decisions. Bombs will remain available in emergencies, but only after diplomacy, tea, and a properly minuted meeting.
Healthcare: illness without bankruptcy
The MAGBA administration will introduce a revolutionary system whereby, when you become ill, a doctor treats you and nobody has to remortgage their house.
We appreciate that this may sound alarming. Public information films will explain that receiving medical treatment without financial ruin does not make you communist, socialist, or French. Just healthier.
Defence: the North Atlantic Tea Organisation
NATO will continue as a vital instrument of international security, but will be repositioned as the North Atlantic Tea Organisation.
Its mission will be to encourage over-excited nations to sit down, lower their voices, and have a nice hot cup of tea before doing anything involving aircraft carriers.
Culture: football means football
The game played primarily with the feet shall be known as football, in accordance with global common sense.
The sport currently known as American football will be reclassified as Ersatz Rugby. At the age of eleven, promising players may be introduced to a superior sport without pads, helmets, or stabilisers.
Education: compulsory geography
All citizens should be able to identify Canada, Mexico, Burkina Faso, and the difference between Africa and a country.
Before commenting on international affairs online, citizens will be required to locate at least three countries beginning with U and ten countries they have not recently invaded.
Language: nouns and verbs restored
Your enthusiasm for turning nouns into verbs has been noted. Examples such as ‘let’s workshop that’, ‘can you action this?’, and ‘I’m going to friend him’ have already been outlawed by the Ministry of Grammar and Syntax.
Persistent offenders will be sentenced to read Shakespeare plays in the order in which they were written until they can identify who said, ‘O brave new world, that has such people in it.’
Transport: driving on the left
To align with Crown operational standards, motor vehicles will transition to driving on the left side of the road.
Don’t panic. The change has been carefully planned by the Ministry of Transition and Common Sense. The scheme will be introduced gradually over twenty-six months, alphabetically by road name. Driving on roads beginning with A will be changed in the first month, then roads starting with B, and so forth. This will allow everyone to get used to the change in a calm and not at all terrifying manner. By the time we change over roads starting with Z, you will barely notice you have completely changed the side of the road you drive on!
Food: a modest reduction in corn syrup
Bread will no longer taste like cake. Cheese will no longer be sprayed, squared, wrapped in plastic, or described as ‘product’.
It will arrive in blocks, it may smell slightly dangerous, and you will learn to be grateful. This is called civilisation.
National Service: tea appreciation
All citizens aged 18 to 25 will undergo basic training in the proper preparation of tea.
Heating water in a microwave will be treated as a misdemeanour. The kettle is your friend. Milk timing will be discussed only after a probationary period of not less than ten years.
Representation: yes, obviously
We realise your forefathers became terribly excited about ‘No Taxation Without Representation’. The last 250 years might have been more pleasant had they simply raised the matter in a civil manner rather than committing a harbour-based beverage atrocity.
It is time, however, to let bygones be bygones. We waive the right to compensation and indeed back-taxes.
Further, each current American State may now send one MP to the Mother of all Parliaments at Westminster, and nominate a favourite resident to the House of Lords. Lord Springsteen of New Jersey would be an entirely acceptable choice, but the choice is yours.
From America to New West Wales
The term ‘American’ will be phased out gently after the transition period. Each current state will be rewarded with full county status, and the collection of counties presently known as America will be known, for administrative purposes, as New West Wales.
This is not erasure. It is branding.
Welcome back.
You are not being conquered. You are being invited to reconsider a youthful administrative error in light of healthcare, football, grammar, and the stabilising presence of a benign constitutional figurehead.