Britain Up For Sale On Ebay.

The falling stockmarket is not all bad news financial experts announced today. "With the British stockmarket falling by 14% our companies are relatively cheap and are attractive to foreign buyers," our financial editor reports. "We now have an opportunity the flog everything that isn't nailed down. Of course such inward "investment" doesn't show as an increase in GDP so has largely been missed. But we can confidently expect to see many companies bought up by India, Russia and China and shipped abroad lock stock and barrel. Bad news in terms of employment I'll grant you but at least it allows shareholders to offload their shares and slip off to sunnier climes, so its not all bad news." The IMF were particularly pleased at the news. "We've been very worried about Britain," an unnamed spokesperson for the IMF told us. "Flogging off Greek assets has been relatively easy since we've got their politicians by the short and curlies over the Euro, but Britain isn't a member of the Eurozone and isn't technically bankrupt. Fortunately Britain's government have cared so little for their own industries or for regulating the finance markets that grabbing assets during an economic downturn is child's play. Thank God for Thatcher!" We asked George Osborne for his reaction; "This is fantastic news for Britain - or at least for that part that counts for anything. With any kind of luck we can sell all of our industries and retire on the proceeds before the great unwashed get wind of what's going on."