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Why I am a confirmed donkey-sceptic

As I was returning home from the Spitfire modelling club the other Sunday I found my progress along the old Ottery lane was obstructed by a troop of plodding bottoms.

The local donkey sanctuary was out on a riding trip — the stupid beasts blocking the entire lane and slowing us down to a crawl. This sort of thing has been going on in my area for far too long now. The good people of Ottery are being taken for a ride by these smug do-gooding types.

I am not an aggressive person, but I decided that it was high time for me to have my say. I got out of my car and gave the trip leader a piece of my mind. An F-word laden reply later, I was told that I could “take my fat arse down to the sanctuary and talk to the manager if I had nothing better to do with my time.” I took this man at his word and proceeded directly there on foot. The manager looked rather alarmed by my banging on his door.

When that did not work, and I turned to attacking his window with a tree branch, he called in a burly security man who ejected me from the
premises. I am not the sort to get things out of proportion, but that kind of abuse of my basic rights as an Englishman really took the biscuit. First they override our ancient byelaws about not blocking roads, then they throw me off a piece of land I used to live on.

I was explaining to my friend Nigel down the pub how I actually sold my old flat in Little Ottery to the developers of the donkey park a few years ago. Nigel used to work at the golf club before it went bust, and now works part-time as a clerk at the sanctuary.

Some of the things he told me about what goes on there would make your eyes water. He spends more time filling out forms than actually working with the donkeys. He said if he was prime minister he would shut the whole gig down — they cause so much damage.

“Yes”, I said to him, “but we really should try to be less parochial about these things.” I am quite internationally minded myself. I holiday in the Costas every year. I like the climate and the culture. I can even order a beer in Spanish. I am thinking of changing that though come to think of it, the way the Germans steal all the deck chairs like they own the place — those instincts never seem to die. Anyway, that was what I told Nigel — be more broad-minded.

Then he dropped a bombshell. The local sanctuary is one of a huge network, it’s a sort of super-charity. There are branches all over the place. I checked it out later on the internet and he was quite right. There are donkey sanctuaries
doing this sort of damage everywhere, all following orders from faceless bureaucrats at head office.

The website says that “we give our sanctuaries broad scope to choose how they spend the vast majority of their own budgets in a federal structure.” Federal super-charity? No thank you, not in Little or Big Ottery. I had not realised just how many there were. It is staggering.

If you think of how many roads those donkey bottoms are blocking all over England, how many people they are holding up — it’s a complete scandal.
Don’t get me wrong. I like donkeys; I just hate the donkey sanctuaries. In fact, what’s really amazing is how long the liberal media have been pulling the wool over our eyes about how much damage they do. Think how much more
efficient the economy would be if all the traffic wasn’t held up by those donkey parties blocking all our roads. And those overpaid managers on the donkey sanctuary gravy train really need to go and do something more beneficial for society than whatever paperwork they do all day in the office — all sorts of health and safety nonsense I imagine.

That’s another reason they have started pressurising Nigel about
his job; he didn’t bother with one of the forms and then a child broke a few bones. His parents have been demanding compensation and help for his wheelchair costs and home help. Ridiculous.

That’s another thing these sanctuaries do, give the kids a sense of entitlement. The organisation really is despicable. It is an inefficient gravy train, it is taking away rights we have had for centuries, it is full of health and safety political correctness gone mad nonsense. It is holding back our economy and
helping the youths terrorise ordinary folk even more. Naturally, I felt it was my civic duty to draw attention to this monstrosity. I tried to start a campaign about it, but even the police are in cahoots with them now. After one particularly expressive altercation I was hauled up before the magistrate’s court and given an ASBO. Now I have to say inside, but though confined, I can still write this and spread the word. The truth will out!

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