Our international affairs correspondent, Rendell Janner, reports on a worrying return to the darkest days of the Cold War
In what could be the start of a major international incident, the Chairman of the Greater Relubbus Urban Council (GRUC), Councillor Billy Spargo (84), has warned Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (33, left) to "keep 'is snout out" of Relubbus's affairs.
Councillor Spargo (93) is said to be "incandescent" about Russia's latest support for Relubbus's arch-enemy, the People's Republic of Hayle.
The "People's Republic" has long been a client state of Russia, from which it obtains most of its industrial machinery, consumer goods (such as there are), cars, tractors, and military hardware. In return, it supplies the Russians with bananas and sugar cane. The political and economic ethos of the drab one-party state is fundamentally opposed to that of the thriving free-market economy of Relubbus.
Prime Minister Putin was spotted on a recent fishing trip to the People's Republic, where he is shown (left) fishing in Copperhouse Pool.
The border dispute between Relubbus and the People's Republic has been simmering for decades. However, in recent years the antagonists have mostly been content to glare at each other from their respective watchtowers on either side of the border, across acres of minefields.
That could be about to change, if reports that Russia has supplied the Haylors with medium-range rockets are true. These rockets are capable of targeting central Relubbus. Although the formidable Relubbus military machine obviously possesses far more powerful missiles of its own, Spargo clearly fears that their new weapons could tempt the Haylors, who have never possessed such armaments before, into making a rash pre-emptive strike.
Putin is shown, left, with one of the rockets that he has allegedly supplied to the People's Republic.
In a bellicose statement, Councillor Spargo (23) threatened that, unless the Russians withdrew the rockets, he would send a naval taskforce headed by the battleship Pride of Relubbus (formerly HMS Warspite) to blockade the Russian navy in the Black Sea.
He also threatened to turn off Russia's major source of energy, the pipeline from the giant Cripplesease wind farm.
We will keep you informed as the crisis develops.
SPARGO WARNS PUTIN
WARSPITE WRECK DISCOVERED
By stand-in reporter Horton Tregarthen
Recent photo of the Warspite taken from a specially diverted Relubbus Airways flight to Mousehole heliport
It had always been understood, and indeed, even reported back in the 1950s in the pages of that lesser journal, the Cornishman, that scrap metal from the wreck of HMS Warspite had been stored at the Albert Quay in Penzance, and later transferred to various steelworks. Now, in a shock revelation, it has emerged that this was nothing but a ghost story.
Greater Relubbus Urban Council (GRUC) workers have today let slip that they found the "wreck" intact in a secret location near Prussia Cove when they were down there helping GRUC Chairman, Billy Spargo, put a "lick o' paint" on his 500-odd holiday chalets.
They seemingly came across the ship beached in an inaccessible cove on land owned by Mr Spargo. They were overheard by a Roundup roving reporter discussing the find amongst themselves next to Trevaskis's Mobile Croust van.
When the reporter confronted Councillor Spargo with both the story and with a photo taken on a specially diverted Relubbus Airways flight, he had no option but to come clean.
His father had "acquired and parked" the vessel in the cove and had told the young Billy, "'Ere boy, if ay 'ave a bit o' trouble you can bring 'er out of mothballs to elp ay".
It was Billy's intention to do just this at a significant moment in the development of hostilities between Relubbus and Hayle. Assisted by a few hand-picked men, he intended to sail the newly re-named Pride of Relubbus, together with vital assistance from the flagship of the Liechtenstein Navy, round Land's End to the Hayle estuary and then "blaw they there Hayle buggers off the face o' the earth. And our first shot will be at that damn viaduct of theirs!"
"The calm before the Storm" -- a quiet scene at the Hayle viaduct which is soon to be targeted by the newly formed Relubbus Navy
A spokesman at Devonport naval base, Sir Cloudsley Shovel, today stated that if Billy Spargo wishes to return the ship "then we won't take the matter any further".
However, with the nameplates now changed all over the ship, Billy believes that an impossible burden of proof now lies with the British Royal Navy, if it were to seek to assert ownership.
