Is the flooding of the Somerset Levels the consequence of a botched attempt by the Department of the Environment to cull badgers in the West Country? Despite denials by the government, rumours persist that, having been defeated by the badgers during an earlier cull attempt last year – according to the Environment Secretary, Owen Paterson, the badgers ‘moved the goal posts’, frustrating attempts to shoot them – it was decided to instead drown them en masse, by flooding their habitats in the region. “It’s all got out of bloody hand!” seventy three year old Somerset farmer Archie Giblets told a local newspaper. “They’ve pumped so much water into the area that we’re the ones being flushed out, whilst those furry black and white bastards have all escaped to a safe haven!” Indeed, several witnesses are claiming to have seen local badgers commandeering boats, dinghies and canoes, often by force, in order to make their escape. “My mate Barty Bellowes swears he saw this gang of badgers ambush a boat carrying a family of five to safety as it passed some trees,” claims Giblets. “The bastards leaped out of the trees and swarmed all over the boat like bloody pirates! They were biting and clawing the occupants until they were forced to abandon their boat and swim for it! Last he saw of the boat, it were heading south east with a badger at the tiller and at least fifteen more as passengers!”
Many believe that the badgers are heading for the new Sussex badger sanctuary recently set up by former Queen guitarist Brian May. “The bastards know they’ll be safe there, while the rest of us drown,” grumbles Giblets. “It’s bloody typical – townies bastards like that Queen bloke will spend millions on badger sanctuaries, but there’s not a bloody penny to spare for flood defences to save our homes!” The Environment Department has hit back at the allegations that the flooding was a deliberate anti-badger tactic by claiming that, on the contrary, the flooding was actually caused by the badgers, as part of their retaliation for last year’s attempted cull. “They haven’t just moved the goal posts this time, they’ve water-logged the entire pitch,” said a spokesperson. “It turns out they spent the entire time between the suspension of the cull and Christmas filling drains and ditches across Somerset with earth from their setts. Indeed, we’ve had reports of them using dumper trucks to tip tons of rubble and concrete from building sites into the rivers so as to silt them up!”
According to the spokesperson, the flooding isn’t the only retaliatory action carried out by the badgers. “We’re pretty sure that they were behind the gassing in their homes of the families of several of the pest control agents involved in the culls,” he claimed. “In one case they managed to seal all the windows and doors before sticking a hose attached to a car exhaust through the letter box, killing a family of five in their beds! At first the police thought it was an accident – carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty boiler. Until they realised that the house didn’t have gas, it was all electric.” The gassings, in turn, led to a series of revenge attacks against badgers by vigilantes, culminating in gallons of poison being poured down a badger sett on the Isle of Wight. “Not surprisingly, the Isle of Wight has suffered badly from the floods as a result,” the spokesperson mused. “The badgers have clearly turned the tables – they’re out to exterminate us.” Indeed, it seems that the militant mammals have even attempted political assassination , with Environment Secretary and badger baiter-in-chief Owen Paterson left in in hospital with a detached retina after a crazed badger ambushed him as he inspected flood defences in Chertsey earlier this month.
Meanwhile Sir Fred Wibberly, a UKIP county councillor in Berkshire, has poured scorn on the badger allegations, offering instead his theory that the flooding is the fault of immigrants and asylum seekers. “We’ve been telling everyone for years that we’ve been letting too many people into this country,” he told the West Berks Sheep Farmers’ Weekly. “Now are warnings have been vindicated – it’s quite clear that there are so many immigrants here that the country is quite literally sinking, allowing the sea to rush in and flood everywhere! It’s quite clear that the UK was only designed to take a finite number of people!” Wibberly and several UKIP colleagues are currently advocating that the government start physically throwing large numbers of immigrants ‘overboard’, so as to lighten Britain’s load and allow it to rise in the water.
An increasingly desperate David Cameron has now intimated that the recent run of extreme weather was the result of a plot by an evil international criminal genius. “We’re not entirely clear as to his identity, but the fact is that this character and the organisation he represents have been directing their ‘weather machine’ against the UK, in an attempt to hold us to ransom,” a spokesperson for Ten Downing Street has told the press. “So, you see, it wouldn’t have mattered if we had spent money on dredging rivers and flood defences – they would have just turned up their ‘weather machine’ to even more destructive levels – we would have had hurricanes, blizzards, tornadoes the whole lot!” Pressed on the issue of whether the government had eventually paid the ransom, the spokesperson would only point out that the Prime Minister had already declared that, where the weather crisis was concerned, ‘money was no object’, before attempting to blame the public sector for the situation. “Look, the fact is that we could have resolved this international criminal blackmail business far more quickly and cheaply by simply sending our top secret agent halfway around the world to beat a few people up and blow something to bits,” he claimed. “But, being a typical civil servant, when the crisis broke he was busy enjoying his over-generous paid leave, sunning himself on a beach in the Bahamas – it’s high time we put these services out to competitive tender. I’m sure Serco or G4S could offer a better value service…”
