Crimewave Blamed on Influx of Governments

(Divide and conquer: a legislation too many?)

Residents of Two Close, Eely, were in uproar tonight after it emerged that yet another government has moved onto their quiet English street. The regime, which arrived yesterday and is still unpacking, is said to be a relatively liberal administration with strong, albeit vague, views on something it calls “the Family.”

Locals voiced their fears at an emergency meeting in Two community centre where feelings were running high. A one-armed man, who did not wish to be identified, called the state a “hypocritical robber,” and claimed that it had victimised him for years. Others said they had seen the government watching them from its back garden and making notes. And a perceptive youth warned that it would “exploit our paranoia to set us all at loggerheads.”

But the new arrival, speaking through a TV channel it happened to control, asked for patience, declaring that it “wasn’t like other governments.”

There are estimated to be some 12 000 governments now living in the Cambridgeshire town, with up to twice that many in the surrounding fens, lurking. Although most are small governments, they are fiercely territorial, and responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime in the area.

Residents complain of kidnappings, theft, extortion, firearms offences, torture and pontifications.

The legislative bodies arrive with “different standards,” according to local ventriloquist Maggie Capricorn, speaking through a ‘friend’. “They lope into town on moonless evenings, get drunk on power, and make life a misery. Many seem unfamiliar with basic morality. In terms of ethics, they’re probably about four centuries behind the average person. They are truly the neighbours from hell.”

“They’ve virtually monopolised violence,” said police poet Jocund Bo, “Much of it’s linked to feuds between fellow legislative bodies from all over the world, but innocent bystanders are often the ones who suffer.”

However, in a statement beamed into residents’ dreams, the government assured them it was committed to unspecified change and bound to its neighbours by a “social charter” of unknown content, which none of them had signed up to, and with no opt-out clause, adding that it would also like to strengthen “the Family” and “the values of the Family values.”