Dear Sir - After the successful sale of our local peerages –the Lord Skilling, the Duchess of Dreadnought and the Baroness of Bucky Doo ( See here for details), I’ve been asked by Bridport Radio to enquire discreetly about how much it would actually cost us to formalise our peerages, through the usual channels. I realise that as a well respected local politician of great integrity, you probably don’t actually knock out the peerages yourself, but was hoping you could put us in touch with the office that does.
 Whilst I’m on, I notice from your website that you’d like some input of tackling anti-social behaviour. The Lord Skilling presides over a large sprawl of social housing on the rugged hills of Bridport. His Lordship, ever keen to help the community, asked me to report that initial trials with his new mace of office, hand-crafted from Dorset grown oak, have proved it an extremely effective deterrent to anti-social behaviour.
Yours discreetly, Andy Hawthorne Jims office replies... ...Information about this process can be found online at http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/ceremonial Bridport Radio rejoinds... ...Thanks for your prompt response. Unfortunately, although the official nomination process does sound terribly worthy, it is a tad drawn out and involves a lifetime of genuine social commitment. Our peers would prefer to look, discretely of course, into the cash-in-hand donation, fast-track option... Have you any idea of what the going rate is for a minor peerage? It may well be that our peers are unable to raise sufficient taxes for at least a couple of years, in which case we’d stop bothering you with the formality of recognition until such time as we had the funds to purchase. LOCAL PRIORITIES The Lord Skilling, by the way, has been fascinated by Jim’s recent speeches, he was particularly keen to offer some help on the following local priorities:  LORD SKILLING Lord Skilling has been undertaking some excellent work in this by opening up the homes of absentee landlords for local use. All it takes is a couple of lads with a crowbar and a new lock and hey presto affordable housing! Let us know if you’d like us to train up some of your party workers. € A fairly fragile local economy - partly caused by proximity from key economic centres, a poor local skills base, an ageing population, poor transport links and an over-reliance on low wage tourism and agriculture Skilling operates a robust local economy on his estate taking full advantage of low skilled, ageing workers, with poor transport by paying them in food stamps redeemable for goods at the estate outlet. They’re poor but happy and get to work long past retirement age with as much free cider as they can drink – as long as they help to make it, naturally. € Rural poverty and disadvantage that sometimes gets overlooked when large-scale regeneration funding is distributed We have had much experience of regeneration funding in West Dorset. The bulk of the money is paid to imported middle class consultants, feasibility studiers, strategic planners and renewal consultants who are then directly responsible for the disparity between local wages and high house prices. They come into Dorset for a few months, spend all the available funding on meeting and employing each other, fall in the love with the place and buy second homes with their inflated wages. The absentee landlord “tax” , outlined above solves this problem too, re-distributing the wasted funding directly to those most in need. Whilst Skilling deplores the vast quantities of public money wasted in this process, he does concede that the complete lack of actual development that does occur is infinitely more desirable than many of the destructive and ludicrous developments proposed. Dorset ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Spend the money on promoting tourism in Hampshire and community events in Dorset. € In some areas we suffer from a culture of low aspirations and expectations Again Lord Skilling leads the way – our expectation is that our high aspirations will be taken very seriously ... Could we have the number for peerage cash desk please? Regards
Andy Hawthorne
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