Business Secretary Vince Cable has criticised the small earthquake that hit parts of Cumbria last night for “blatant attention seeking”.
In a statement Mr Cable stated “It is typical of natural phenomena in that part of the world that they have an inflated belief in their own importance and an exaggerated sense of the impact that they have on the world.”
“It is pure attention seeking behaviour for an earthquake to strike at a time when news media are desperate for a story that doesn’t involve me or the snow. For God’s sake, 3.6 on the Richter scale? That’s hardly going to have the San Andreas Fault quaking in its boots, if you pardon the pun.”
Mary Boyle, spokesperson for the Cumbria Tourist Board, said in reaction to the statement that “Cumbria has, to be fair, been out of the news for a few months. We played our trump card with our very own mad gunman only to be upstaged by that nutter Raoul Moat – who could have seen that coming?”
“The only thing we had left up our sleeves was an explosion at the Keswick Pencil Museum, but it was felt that might have backfired once the dust settled, with nothing left to do in the Lakes when it rained.”
“So we were happy for the earthquake to have a go, although it is disappointing that there were no casualties, not even a few sheep knocked over and unable to get to their feet – that’s always good for 30 seconds on Look North.”