West Dorset: Village Idiot Preservation Society launched

THE PLIGHT of the villages of West Dorset is fast becoming dire. The shops, Post Offices and pubs are closing like the rat traps in Hamelin before the arrival of the Pied Piper. Yet that is only the tip of a very worrying iceberg.

As well as these important ingredients of rural life an historical tradition that dates back to the centuries before any of these other facilities were even imagined is also being lost. I write, of course, of the lamentable dearth of idiots in our villages.

There are a few, I will grant you, but they are nothing like of the standards that our grandparents would have expected and, even, demanded. Action must be taken and it must taken now before this vital ingredient of village life is finally and irretrievably lost forever.

To that end I am, today, announcing the formation of the Village Idiot Preservation Society (VIPS). Unless immediate action is taken the management consultancies, the major political parties and the merchant banks will have removed all of our local half-wits from their natural environment and grabbed them for themselves. Why should the big cities have them all?

Our first action must be to press this government for speedy legislation. A legal obligation must be placed on each and every parish, town district and county councillor to ensure the comfort, well being and comfort of any idiot in the area which they represent.

This will often require little action from our duly elected representatives beyond tucking themselves up warmly at night, eating three square meals a day and not randomly casting clouts until May is out. The idiots must become a protected species. Blow the newts, the bats and the hedgehogs. What about putting out own native dolts first?

This must become a rallying call for mass action. There must be petitions, marches and even sit-ins, on nights when there’s not much on television, of course.

Let the clarion call ring out “Hand off our idiots”.

In this, as in so much else where West Dorset leads, the rest of the country will follow.

Please join with me and help restore the village idiot to his rightful place in our society. Join with The Red Bladder and do this, if not for yourself, for future generations and for England.