Damn Foreign Johnies.

The news today carried a report that two Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs are on the loose in Southampton. Police say that their escape has been traced to a domestic dispute between the animals’ owners.

A spokesperson for the far-right British National Party, the English Defence League, and the United Kingdom Independence Party pointed out that that this illustrates the dangers of allowing into Britain anything that can’t trace its ancestry back to at least the Norman Conquest. He told reporters:

‘We can see the day coming when the proper pink pig will disappear under a mass of multi-coloured intruders. We owe a duty to our own dear pigs to ensure that this will not happen.’

When asked whether this might be taking the concept of Albion a little too far, he replied that he was a proud Yorkshireman, and West Bromwich might as well be a suburb of Calcutta for all he cared.

An emergency meeting of the Cabinet was convened, and emerged after ten hours of what one observer called ‘a very heated discussion.’ The Rt Hon Gervaise Pratt-Littlechin, the coalition government’s junior minister for Home Affairs, began by telling reporters that affairs should be tolerated as long as they are conducted between consenting adults who had the money to afford them, and as long as they are decently confined to the home. ‘I know mine are,’ he was heard to mutter under his breath.

When pressed by reporters on the more immediate matter of the errant pigs, he said:

‘Oh, that. Right. The government is aware that Britain has a proud tradition of tolerating pigs of all nations, and we wouldn’t like that honourable principle to disappear. However, we also recognise that the influx of foreign animals is a worry to many of our decent, hard working beasts, and so we will be stringently reviewing the law on allowing these inferior breeds onto our hallowed mud. An announcement will be made in the autumn when we’ve all had our summer hols in our second homes dotted around the globe.’

When further pressed on the question of whether the pigs’ far-eastern origins had any bearing on the case, he said ‘Of course not. Such an idea is pure hearsay and utter nonsense.’ An undercover reporter from Channel 4 did, however, gain his unwitting confidence at a drinks party later. He told us that the junior minister admitted to a minor prejudice with the words ‘Let’s face it, old chap, those blasted Vietnamese johnies do have a bit of history of being a pain in the rectum, don’t you know. Our colonial cousins from over the water had to go and give them a sound thrashing in the 1960s, if you remember. Not that I do, of course. I was a mere glint in pater’s monocle at the time. But I know my history.’

Meanwhile, the police in Southampton are struggling to contain large crowds of angry pink pigs carrying ‘Foreigners Out!’ placards.