Loan sharks

I am not one to say "I told you so" but I told you so. The case for Umbrella Investment is proven. The Umbrellabuilders fund, which enables people in especially soggy parts of England to borrow brollies, has reached capacity. We have had to close it 14 years ahead of schedule. So successful have we been in meeting the government's main KPI of being seen to be doing something quickly that we have run out of umbrellas to lend. And the government can quote a positive headline figure of huge umbrella infrastructure investment just ahead of the election.

Never mind evaluating the impact of the loans we have made, which you would think would be the true point at which we could determine whether or not we had been successful. Let's assume it's a done deal and pat ourselves on our smug backs.

This proves there is an appetite for loans and if the metric of success is demand then we are golden, baby. That there is such demand shows that umbrella investment is the new sliced bread. After all, anything that people desperately want is automatically great. Such as heroin.

So all those who said that we couldn't flood the market with easy access gamps can eat their hats. Of course, what state these brollies will be in when returned to us, assuming we get them back at all, is another matter. But we won't worry about that for now. We can always send the boys round later if anyone defaults. Or bang them up in the brolly debtor prisons we will soon be running.

Busy day for me today. In a minute I have to face the Gareth Chilcott inquiry to brazenly lie and defend claims I made about Umbrellas of Mass Destruction (UMD) in Iraq. Then it is on a train ooop North for the first leg of my Big Arse tour. It's only Bogg'n'Roll but I like it.

Letter from the Chancellor

At last - I've had a response to my begging letter to the Chancellor. It is quite positive, in that it says piss off politely. Some extracts:

Dear Robin

Before I begin I must point out that I have heard every variation of jokes about my surname - it's like living in Blackadder Goes Forth sometimes - so I will not be signing this "Fond regards, Darling" or anything similar, just to get a cheap laugh.

Sorry it has taken me so long to reply but I have been busy sending out my thank you letters for Christmas presents. I welcome the arguments you outline about the umbrella sector saving the economy. I also found the 453 examples of evidence of people being saved a soaking by using a brolly compelling. If you could just gather up a further 14,536,456,789 similar samples then that should keep you quiet until the other lot are elected and have to worry about "solving society's ills" and all that nonsense.

Yours sincerely

Alistair

Mention no 10,000 for No 10

I hate breakfast meetings (unless there is a stack of croissants and they're held at 11am). Nasty Americanism - and way out of line with the pursuit of happiness I praised them for yesterday. I also hate namedropping but when its at No 10 with the PM and the Lord of Darkness somehow you need to.

It would have been even better if I could have had a proper chat with the two of them but all of these other bloody people showed up for the launch of something.

I managed a quick word with the PM over coffee - well he said "thanks" when I passed him a biscuit - but it was all a bit crowded and the croissants were French so I made my excuses and headed off. Then it was off to Windsor Castle for a meeting. Click here for more details.

Happiness

We want it! And BUBB has even published a book on it; our country's umbrella sector makes a huge contribution to the well being of our country. How the spirits rise when you realise it is pissing it down and you remembered your brolly. And how delightful it is to see a hated colleague come back from Greggs clutching a soggy pasty because they left their own one on the tube. And in case you think I have got all sloppy and hippy like, let's remember that the American constitution seeks to guarantee life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and the right to bear an umbrella. And the Americans have gone out of their way ever since to spread their own brand of joy throughout the world.

Happiness means many things to different people. To some it is a cigar called hamlet. To John Lennon it was warm gun - a sentiment that came back to oh so cruelly mock him 13 years later.

Most people are too serious to consider jollity to be important in an organisation and I doubt that being merry appears in many strategic plans. But it is certainly a key part of my working day, especially when the networking kicks in.

Ooooh, I am spitting feathers

Deeply irritating when my head of comms, the talented Ms McMoan points out an article in The Times written by Sandy Bunsen-Byrne (what is it with people called Sandy trying to annoy me?) of the improbably named Local National Fragmented Coalition for Co-ordinated Independent Apathy Action whoever the hell they are.

I am so angry that my pants explode and my spelling goes haywire. This numptie suggests that by taking money from the Office of the Brolly Sector, BUBB and other groups including NCVO and NAVCA are silenced into never criticising the government and are thus compromising the umbrella sector's cherished independence.

Er pardon? I can only assume that Bunsen-Byrne has had his head up his arse for the last year and has therefore missed me threatening Sandy Burnham-Drownham with a bunch of fives for his NHS preferred supplier nonsense. Perhaps he was nuzzling his colon when I offered to tear Alistair Darling a new one for ignoring a letter I sent him. He must have been polishing his sphincter when I gave umbrella minister Veronica Squif a hard stare when she refused to hand over some money we wanted.

And presumably there is no internet connection inside his bottom or else he would have seen many examples in my blog (which will be compulsory reading when we're running prisons and the justice system) of foot stamping, dummy spitting and toy throwing when the government doesn't do what I want.

And then he makes the extraordinary claim that 95 per cent of people who work in the umbrella sector agree with him. Amazing. What survey was that exactly? A random sample of people in the Frog and Fucwit at closing time? Because it certainly takes the piss. Only BUBB are allowed to make outlandish claims based on either poorly compiled research or by twisting statistics to meet our an agenda.

Sure I am all for cosying up to government as it is only by doing this that we get the cash in the first place. So there is no place for your shite peddling here. We will continue to both lick and slap arses as appropriate because the government doesn't scare us. If you want to criticise BUBB there are plenty of other more legitimate concerns. Such as what we then spend the government's money on.

Summits happening

Last week we had our quarterly recession summit where all of the big kahunas in umbrellaland get together and scare each other with Domesday scenarios. These summits used to be called meetings but serious times call for hyperbole and self importance. As it's on the recession I wear an appropriate tie (Duchamp, naturally). I do this to emphasise that if we're not careful we will piss everything away and the whole umbrella sector will go down the toilet.

Lester Twomore, head of the Umbrella Lottery Fund wears some expensive and brash silk tie but I think flaunting flashy material wealth at a discussion about how umbrella organisations are battling against the grim realities of a recession is wholly inappropriate.

I make my usual points about the Brolly Investment Bank and the brolly sector's VAT burden and the billions of pounds that our cash rich government should give us simply because we keep on asking for it remorselessly, like a kid on a long car journey ("Are we there yet? Are we there yet?").

I also forget about not blurring the lines between my position as CEO of BUBB with that of being chair of Umbrellabuilders or whatever we're now calling it by plugging loans from the latter. You can consolidate all of your umbrella debts into one easy payment and we're about to launch Cash for Brollies. Send us your unwanted gamps and we'll send you a couple of pence.

I took a call in the afternoon from Rick T'Hurd, the shadowy Tory umbrella spokesman and then had a teleconference call with Hubert, Twirley and some others about the upcoming Tory summit (there's that word again) BUBB is organising to ingratiate ourselves with the likely new government. But if Cameron puts out any more daft vote losing airbrushed posters we'll probably cancel and court Labour again. We have a great discussion and agree it is a fantastic opportunity for us to row together. We can really get stuck in and argue the toss and hurl personal insults and generally have a 24 carat ding-dong.

Then it was off to a roundtable at Feudal to discuss learning from local government. That took 5 minutes so we head off for dinner. I had dog biscuits so I could take the left overs home for Barkles, and I swiped my neighbours lambshank as well, before she'd eaten it. The wine was pleasant but no champagne. Times are hard! Apparently there's a recession on but even so, that shouldn't stop me brazenly chronicling a high-falutin lifestyle.

I do have to watch what I eat at the minute, however. My deputy, Hector Rule, has taken it upon himself to monitor my nutritional intake and I am paranoid he will try and poison me to get my job. He is a doctor after all so will have access to plenty of pills and potions.

Yes it's true; we have no idea what impact we have!

Every so often we beat ourselves off and moan over statistics about umbrellas but bemoan the lack of stats about the impact of the brolly sector. But we know we are great. You don't need so-called evidence to tell you this. In the same way that you intuitively know when criminals and murderers are guilty. You don't require actual proof, which just slows the criminal justice system down. That's it really.