I was sent this by a mate and felt that every brit who stops by could identify with it – sadly..

a parable for modern times (or the real reason the BNP have such a large following)
A PARABLE FOR MODERN TIMES.

REST OF THE WORLD VERSION:

The squirrel works hard in the blisterering heat all summer long, building and improving his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the squirrel’s a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the squirrel is secure, warm and well fed.
The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

THE END

THE BRITISH VERSION:

The squirrel works hard in the blisterering heat all summer long, building and improving his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the squirrel’s a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the squirrel is secure, warm and well fed.

A social worker finds the shivering grasshopper, calls a press conference and demands to know why the squirrel should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like the grasshopper, are cold and shivering.
The BBC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper; with cuts to a video of the squirrel enjoying his warm and comfortable home with a table laden with food.

The British press inform people that they should be ashamed that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so greatly while others such as the squirrel have plenty.
The Labour Party, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Animal Rights and The Grasshopper Council of GB set up a hostile demonstration in front of the squirrel’s house.
The BBC, interrupting an ethnically cultural festival special from Notting Hill with breaking news, broadcasts a multi-cultural choir singing “We Shall Overcome”.
In an interview with Trevor McDonald, Ken Livingstone rants on about how the squirrel got rich off the backs of grasshoppers and calls for an immediate tax hike on the squirrel to make him pay his “fair share” and doubles the charge for squirrels to enter inner London.

In response to pressure from the media, the Government drafts a new Parliamentary Act, the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti-Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer.
As soon as the new Act is passed the squirrel’s taxes are immediately 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 is levied for contempt when he tries to explain to the court that 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 squirrel’s food is seized and redistributed to the more needy members of society, in particular the grasshopper.

Without enough money to buy more food, to pay the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, the squirrel 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 they were released immediately because, while they were in custody, the police fed them pilchards instead of salmon.
Initial moves to return them to their own country were abandoned because it was feared they might face death by the mice.
Left free and unsupervised, the cats devise and start a scam to obtain money from stolen credit card PINs.

A Panorama special shows the grasshopper finishing up the last of the squirrel’s food, though spring is still months away, while the council house he is in is crumbling around him because he hasn’t bothered to do any maintenance.
He is shown to be taking Class A drugs.
A Royal Commission is set up and reports that inadequate government funding is to blame for the grasshopper’s drug ‘illness’.

The cats seek recompense in the British courts for their “unfair and inhospitable” treatment since their 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 the care of the probation service to monitor and supervise him. Within a few weeks he has killed a guinea pig in a botched robbery.

A Commission of Enquiry, that will eventually cost at least �10,000,000 and just state the obvious, is set up.
Additional money is put into funding a drug rehabilitation scheme for grasshoppers and the legal fees for lawyers representing asylum seekers are 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 the cats.

The grasshopper dies of a drug overdose.
The usual sections of the press blame it on the obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from the social inequity of his treatment by the hard-working squirrel and his traumatic experience of being held in prison.
They call for the resignation of one or more government ministers.

The cats are paid one million pounds each because their rights were infringed when the government failed to inform them that there were mice in the United Kingdom .

The squirrel, the dogs and all the victims of the various hijackings, bombings, burglaries and robberies are told that they will have to pay an additional percentage on their credit cards to cover losses.
Their taxes are to be increased to pay for the increased effectiveness of the government’s policies on law and order and they are told that they will have to work beyond 65 because ther is a shortfall in government funds.
This shortfall includes the costs of building and maintaining a state memorial
to all grasshoppers who have died of cold and starvation.

THE END.

How true, how sad.. I so wish I was the author of this – anyone know where it originated?