Thinking Paper #206 - Is the Ed Balls and George Osborne show good for the economy?

By Tim Massingberd James

Abstract

Here at the IIPBA we love a bit of political nonsense, and nothing pleased us more than seeing talking boxes George Osborne and Ed Balls on the same sofa next to floppy-eared Andrew Marr yesterday morning having an abstract conversation about which was more of a tear-jerker out of the Antiques Roadshow and the Killing. Smashing stuff. We like it, More please.



Is the Ed Balls and George Osborne show good for the economy?

Ed Balls is the Shadow Chancellor. He is a blinky talking box who is married to a fifteen year old boy. George Osborne is the one that makes the decisions. He is the secret love-child of Peter Mandelson and the rear of Rear of the Year winner 1998, Carol Smillie (We won't explain how he managed this, safe to say it involved Mandy doing rather a lot of thinking about Tony's smile). When they get together they squabble like schoolchildren, but we're sure eventually they'll go to Bilderberg together. It's all great fun.

But is all the arguing good for the economy? The IIPBA done a research, and it would appear that the answer is yes. Whilst to us Brits it all seems a bit frivolous and we wish they'd just get on with doing good stuff to the numbers, this does not take into account the blossoming Ed and George paraphenalia market, and the global TV rights for their squabbles. In fact, Ed Balls away kits are now the country's third largest export after Ricky Gervais and the telephone, and one of Osborne's old ties recently exchanged hands in a Nairobi auction house for $150,000.

Foreign people are going mad for the Ed and George show, and a recent six month expedition to the unexplored jungles of Papua New Guinea stumbled on one group of villagers who had never before been contacted by outsiders, silently clustered around a TV they had managed to recover from a crashed aeroplane watching live Treasury Questions. On his recent expedition in the Afghan Hindu Kush, Mountaineer Carlo Spinelli reported stumbling across a remote village where the chief was wearing a strap on bum-for-a-nose and conducting a tribal religious ceremony based around repeated chanting of “Britonnn is faycing the largisst badget deficit since the war and we have noo choyce but to tackle it decisivvvely” whilst doing an Ed Balls 'questionable flatlining salute'.

Conclusion

The world is mad for Ed and George. They should have their own reality TV show where they have to live in a house and its something to do with putting them outside their comfort zone and the only thing we know about it is if it is on Harry Hill's TV Burp.