In the woodland, Gnomepac was addressing the fairies about an idea designed to win votes after a dismal record on improving the environment.
“You are using far too many gossamer bags to carry provisions from the nut store,” he said. “Gossamer bags aren’t natural and they cause litter. I want to see an immediate return to bags made of old leaves as we used to do in the old days.
“These bags might fall apart more quickly, be heavier to carry and take much more energy to make but the elves across the sea in Cloverland have stopped using gossamer and everyone knows they are experts on the environment so it must be a good idea.”
“In fact,” he said, “I feel so strongly about this that I’ve persuaded the editors of the Daily Glade and News of the Woodland to run stories to convince everybody I’m right.
“Then I propose to introduce a tax of one acorn per gossamer bag to make sure that people have no choice in the matter other than to follow our new policy.” The nut retailers and the bag makers thought Gnomepac was off his trolley with this idea. “According to our friends at the nut warehouse”, he said, “if we move away from gossamer bags it means we’ll have to chop down more trees to get to all the extra leaves we’ll need.
“Then we’ll have to hire twice the number of squirrels to work in the bag factory and use another four mice every week to carry the extra bulk of bags to the stores.
“These mice are ugly, dirty, cause congestion and are wearing out the footpaths in the woodlands. I cannot believe that this is the right way to protect our environment.”
At this Gnomepak became extremely irritated and stormed out saying: “I am not interested in reality. This is politics.”
How lucky we are to live in a world where arguments like this will never happen!