Osborne Panic Over Chinese Handbag Purchases.

George Osborne has been busy in Beijing flogging off as many British assets as he can get his hands on in a panicked attempt to save his economic policy. So far he's managed to sell Manchester Airport and the British nuclear industry but the centre-piece of his outstanding sales campaign has been the relaxing of visa regulations for rich Chinese tourists. Boris Johnson has defended this wholesale plunder of British assets and future energy security by pointing out that Harry Potter had a Chinese girlfriend. So that's all right then. However, the spur for this frenzied selling is even more comical. It was apparently sparked off when Ministers were alarmed to find that rich Chinese tourists were buying vastly more expensive handbags in Paris rather than in London. This, they saw at once, was an intolerable situation and one that had to be countered at all costs. We asked a spokesman for the government's view; "It's the bloody French again, swanning around the world and boasting about how many handbags they've sold to the bloody Chinks. Flogging off Manchester Airport and putting the future of nuclear energy into the hands of the Chinks is small price to pay if we can stick it to the bloody French. It's about time we reminded our oldest enemy about Crecy, Agincourt, Trafalgar and Waterloo. When a Chinese businessman hands over an expensive handbag to his bit on the side we should make sure it was purchased in London or, if he finds himself inadvertently stranded there, in Birmingham or Manchester. As Old Georgey told the Chinks yesterday, "I don't want us to try to resist your economic progress, I want Britain to siphon some of it off." I just hope they're as gullible as the British electorate."