Carry on Communities
Act 4 : The Charter of the Forest
Draft 1

Much good had been accomplished by Simon Hobbit, Boris Cat and the Witch of Worcester, but much more remained to be done. One concern was the fate of the Deputy Prime Minister, when he and his comrades awoke from hibernation. The timing of the awakening was also in question.

In the meantime, the Witch and Boris had been charged by higher powers with "cleaning up" the City of London. Fear not, this cleansing was not required as a result of some catastrophic deluge or other environmental catastrophe, although fog had been a problem of late and air pollution levels certainly needed reduction, for both local and global considerations. However, the greatest concern of our hero and heroine just now was the poor ethical condition of London as one of the world's great financial centres. Unfortunately, London was known globally as the World's No. 1 Money "Laundry of choice". Nor was money laundering limited to the Capital, but it was here that the Witch and Boris would earnestly begin the process of cleaning it up.

Meanwhile, Simon Hobbit had been charged with sorting out some of the more unruly parts of Middle England, a task by no means small. A key challenge was what to do with the large number of people who had been employed or otherwise retained by quangos and other unproductive enterprises of that ilk during the rules of the wicked Blair Wizard and the Big Clunking Fist. "Hard labour for them, restoring the great forests !" Boris Cat had advised. The Witch also sympathised with this view : "They have lived off the fat of our land, now let them do some real work for a change. I want to see those former Queens of the Quangos sweat !". Simon, however, was a compassionate hobbit and wished to deal gently with the quango people. Mention of labouring in the forest had, nevertheless, given him an idea. He vaguely remembered an ancient "Charter of the Forest" which had apparently guaranteed basic subsistence to the people of these lands in earlier times. Simon had therefore acquired agreement in principle with the powers that be on the introduction of a type of "Citizen's Income", which would be available to everyone engaged in some kind of productive enterprise, subject to certain basic requirements.

For the purpose of piloting this project in the Birmingham conurbation - something Simon believed would provide a major catalyst for its sustainable regeneration - the services of one Sir Digby de Br'm had been procured (at no little cost in cash and other benefits, it had to be said).
Now Simon also knew that Sir Digby wanted to see Birmingham made the home of a newly to be created English Parliament. This would involve a major downsizing of government in London -something which would liberate much needed space for more important uses - and the relocation of a number of departments of state to Birmingham and other regional cities which could better accommodate them. As a simple man, all this made total sense to Simon Hobbit, and, whilst he sometimes thought Sir Digby de Br'm was a pompous loud mouth, he also believed that, with the right incentives and supervision (from the Witch and Boris, as well as himself), Sir Digby was the man for this particular job. "One day Birmigham will be the apotheosis of the long prophesied sustainable community !", Simon forecast, and so it transpired.


Epilogue : Britain 2107

When the Rt Hon John Prescott MP, Deputy Prime Minister of HM Government of Britain, awoke on the morning of 1 January 2007, he was somewhat surprised to find himself rather more modestly accommodated than when he had fallen asleep. He was also surrounded by rather fewer people than he remembered on that fateful foggy night in December.... Moreover, he was still recovering from a dreadful nightmare in which a disembodied Big Clunking Fist was chasing him through the London Underground. "Must have been that reception at the Irish Embassy", he thought to himself : "The Bishop of London - or was it Woolwich - told me he thought someone had spiked our drinks...."

However, the Deputy Prime Minister looked out of his window, everything looked much better than he remembered it, and he gave a loud snort of satisfaction. "Everything runs much more more smoothly when I'm in charge !", he said.