Monday, August 12, 2013
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| Sometimes the old ways are the best ways. |
In
a dramatic bid to put a definitive end to the growing confrontation over the future of
the rock of Gibraltar, José García-Margallo, the Spanish
Foreign Minister has challenged the British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, to
a duel. The duel, to be fought with antique duelling pistols, will decide the sovereignty
of the rock of Gibraltar and its inhabitants. Should both miss with pistols, then swords will have to be resorted to settle the matter.
It
is proposed to hold the duel at dawn on the airport runway that connects
Gibraltar with the Spanish mainland, just before the arrival of the scheduled EasyJet flight from Manchester.
More
contemporary forms of winner takes all competition were apparently considered by
Mr. García-Margallo’s special advisers, such as a best of three, rock, paper, scissors contest; or even more audaciously,
a who has the largest manhood competition. However, these were decided against
due to concerns over their legal validity and a lack of clarity has to how
large Mr. García-Margallo’s manhood in-fact is.
Instead,
it was decided that a 300 hundred year old problem required a 300 hundred year
old solution. As this is entirely a question of old fashion honour it should be settled according to the customary mechanisms which offer remedy
for it.
If
there’s one thing that we at More Europe!
are good at however, it is knowing when there is more to a story that meets the
eye. Consequently, we sent an unpaid intern, under the guise of a dueling
consultant, to offer their services to Mr. García-Margallo and
try and get to the bottom of this enigmatic story. In the conversation that followed
a shocking discovery was made. Our intern gave us a rough account of what he
was allegedly told:
I don’t give
a flying one about the local fishermen of La Linea and certainly not about tax
evasion; but I do care about relieving people’s minds from corruption scandals,
economic mismanagement and unemployment. What better way to do this than
through populist razzmatazz? I don’t know why we never thought of this before. The
voters will love it and to be honest, after all their suffering, I think they
deserve it. I’ve been consulting Christina Fernandez on populist razzmatazz and
I was so impressed with her expertise that I agreed we team-up at the UN and
put those pirate Brits in their rightful place. I think we can both agree that
this is Spain’s primary national interest.
It
is still not clear whether Mr. Hague has accepted the duel and its terms. Our
sources tell us however, that on receiving the hand written challenge from the
Spanish Ambassador, he exclaimed very loudly, “By jingo, I’ll see this through!”
It was further agreed in cabinet that there were definitely some votes to be
had in shooting a foreigner, particularly a European, as it would demonstrate
that the government was “tough on Europe”.
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| More than just a rock, a lot of national honour at stake. |
