|
FULL APOLOGY ISSUED
PM Tony Blair has today issued a full apology for Britain’s role in the transportation of thousands of prisoners to Australia during the nineteenth century.
In a statement released earlier today, Mr Blair said he feels “deep regret” for the decision, in which people who had committed crimes as trivial as stealing bread were sent to the largely deserted semi-tropical continent via an extensive sea voyage.
Transportation was seen as a cost-effective alternative to the expansion of the prison system during the latter 18th and most of the 19th century. The favoured solution was to send selected criminals as far away from the British Isles as possible, to an almost deserted continent noted for its fantastic climate, glorious beaches, and beautiful coral reefs.
Gradually the resulting settlers developed their own communities, like Sydney, which continue to thrive today.
NOT FAR ENOUGH
The policy of transportation has come in for criticism in recent years from some extremist groups who say that it did not go far enough.
One of those critics, the chairman of the ECB David Morgan, commented: “Those criminals were not transported far enough. If they had been transported a bit further, say to Antarctica, then they would not have been able to implement the amazing sporting infrastructure with which they abuse us so often.”
EXTENSIVE SEA CRUISE
Today’s announcement puts an end to speculation that the government had been considering reintroducing transportation in order to ease the burden on Britain’s creaking prison system.
“I am deeply ashamed for Britain’s role in the transportation of criminals to Australia,” said Mr Blair in his statement.
“The action of my parliamentary forebears has had profound consequences for our modern society. I deeply regret that all these people were sent on what amounted to an extensive sea cruise to a semi-tropical paradise, at the tax-payers expense, and their future generations now insist on ungratefully inflicting horrendous sporting defeats on the mother country. It’s an indictment of liberal Victorian social policy.”
He went on: “I must apologise to all inhabitants of the British Isles who were not transported.”
Though Mr Blair has finally apologised to the residents of Britain for one of the most short-sighted and farcical policies of all time, it is thought that compensation will not be paid to Britain’s 60 million current residents.
|
