Geraldine Dreadful MP Writes ... to George Osborne

Dear Chancellor,

Words alone cannot express the deep, festering, fetid anger I feel in the aftermath of the spending review announced this week, which is why the Sickle East Socialist Solidarity Marcel Marceau Appreciation Group is currently engaged in rehearsals for a mass lobby of Parliament through the slightly sinister medium of mime. Indeed, the people are preparing even now to board Unison sponsored buses to London; at this time of social crisis, Labour has much to be silent about!

There is an enormous amount of anger in this constituency, particularly around the deeply socially significant cuts you have made to the Union Modernisation Fund, which I understand were made three weeks ago, but the memo about which from Unison has only been delivered today.

I have lost count of the number of concerned constituents who have visited me to express their concerns about the end of the fund, which as you are no doubt aware was instrumental in supporting Unions' political solidarity and ensuring people like Bob Crow can be refurbished and modernized. The UMF has allowed the Unions to grow in leaps and bounds, to become more relevant and successful, and to become a significant force for the protection of the worker.

Suggestions by people in your party that the UMF was an enormous slush fund, which paid money from the treasury into unions, which was then pumped directly into the Labour party, were so far beneath contempt, we in my party felt Alan Johnson should simply refuse to dignify them with the sort of convincing response he threw down on you in the spending review debate.

The spending review is of course an outrage, but according to your nemesis, the future Chancellor Alan Johnson, we have to remain constructive in opposition and leave it to him to open a can of revolutionary whupass on you. We aim, as ever, to astound you with our innovation, in this case the innovation of silence. If at all possible we will also seek to be aloof and indignant, at least until Tony Woodley self-immolates on the Politics Show.

Yours sincerely,
Geraldine Dreadful MP