THE PLYMOUTH OMNIBUS
POTHOLES OR PINGERS?
The Battle for Plymouth’s Pavement vs. The Push for Bloody Massive Boats!
BY REG ROCKETBLAST (OUR ‘PIE IN THE SKY’ CORRESPONDENT)
PLYMOUTH is in a right old two-and-eight, readers! Following the government’s announcement of a mind-boggling £298 BILLION national defence splash—including a fat £26 BILLION slice for upgrading naval bases like our very own Devonport Dockyard—local moaners are up in arms.
“Ooh, look at that massive hole in the road!” they cry, clutching their standard-issue structural-damage claim forms. “Why can’t we spend those billions on filling the craters on Mannamead Road instead of buying fancy new nuclear rudders?”
Well, put down your pasties and listen up, you absolute turnip-heads, because Reg Rocketblast is here with a hefty dose of cold, hard military logic.
There is ZERO BLOODY POINT in paying millions to lay down a silky-smooth, premium-grade tarmac surface if the entire city is going to get completely leveled by a foreign adversary the following Tuesday! You can always stick a bit of aggregate and cold-pour bitumen into a pothole after the global crisis blows over, but you can’t exactly patch up a obliterated nuclear submarine refit facility with a high-vis jacket and a shovel, can you?
Let’s look at the raw numbers for those who struggled with basic sums at school:
- THE GLOBAL SHIELD: £26,000,000,000 to keep the country from getting utterly turned to ash.
- THE LOCAL STREETS: A measly £4.06 million ring-fenced by Plymouth City Council for their 12-month “Project Pothole” blitz.
Even a absolute dunce can see that cutting the defence budget won’t magically fix the council’s social care deficit—it’ll just leave us wide open to a tactical pasting while we’re busy complaining about our suspension struts!
THE GREGGS OFFENSIVE!
But wait! The defence dividend isn’t just an abstract concept discussed by men in suits. It’s hitting the high street with the force of a Tomahawk cruise missile!
Babcock International have gone and bought the lease to the massive, empty old House of Fraser building on Royal Parade—known to anyone over the age of forty as Dingles. Instead of building a boring bunker out in the dockyard, they’re plonking a massive “Capability Centre” right in the city centre, marching up to 2,000 highly skilled defence boffins straight into the heart of town.
CRITICAL AIR DEFENCE WARNING!
ANONYMOUS SOURCE AT THE MINISTRY OF FOOD REVEALS: “The high-street economic injection is undeniable. High-street pastry behemoth Greggs is already forecasting unprecedented quarterly turnovers from the influx of 2,000 hungry engineering bellies. However, strategic planners are deeply concerned about the local aerial threat.”
A senior tactical analyst added: “We can only pray that Babcock’s multi-billion-pound budget includes a top-secret, automated anti-avian force field. If these 2,000 brainiacs cannot defend a traditional steak slice from Plymouth’s notorious, chip-thieving airborne division of psycho seagulls, then our local Ivor Dewdney munchers face complete and utter tactical defeat on the pavements. Air superiority is key when you’re eating a pie on Royal Parade!”
THE VERDICT
So there you have it. Defence spending is infrastructure spending. It keeps Devonport thriving, brings thousands of proper jobs downtown, and ensures the local economy has enough cash to pay for the council’s tar-spreaders in the long run.
For the top brass keeping the nation safe, a pothole is just a minor morning jolt. But an undefended city? That’s a proper catastrophe. NATIONAL DEFENCE COMES FIRST! (Unless the seagulls get you first).
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