Argentinian president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has categorically refused to negotiate over the sovereignty of the Isle of Wight, despite the provocative behaviour of Britan's right-wing Coalitionista dictatorship, which recently put a full-page ad in El Diario de Buenos Aires asserting its claims to the barren island.
Diplomats say this is the tensest stand-off since the two countries fought a brief war 30 years ago, which Argentina won on the Duckworth-Lewis method. La Isla Blanca, as it is known there, is a vital link in the South American nation's two-way trade with Europe in corned beef, polo ponies and ageing Nazis.
'General Cameron is cynically trying to raise nationalistic fervour over this issue, because they are no longer able to distract the downtrodden British people since the X-Factor ended,' warned a UN-appointed mediator. 'However, Argentina's recent posting of its native-born singer Chris De Burgh to the island has also provoked justified anger in Britain.'
In the recent ad, Britain denounced Argentina's 200-year possession of the Isle of Wight as a legacy of colonialism that should be corrected. Geographically, it claims, the Isle is part of Britain and could be reached in less than two hours from the abandoned port city of Southampton, in the unlikely event that anyone wanted to go there.
The Isle of Wight is rumoured to have huge untapped reserves of clotted cream and, with heavy investment, it could rapidly be brought into the 1960s. Britain's ight-wing tabloids have urged the Coalitionistas to invade, scoffing at the very idea that a country on the other side of the world and led by a woman would fight back. Fernandez, however, dismisses this as reflecting the latent inadequacy of men in a country that has Katie Price as its icon of feminitity.
'The future of the Isle of Wight is for the inhabitants alone to decide,' said President Fernandez. 'And, with no economic activity to speak of, constant harking back to an idealised but short-lived past and their prejudice against incomers despite being mostly immigrants themselves, they are clearly Argentine in every respect. We will use force if we must to save these poor people from the tinpot British regime, which should hopefully fall from power soon anyway.'
[A joint effort with simonjmr. Hat tips to Sinnick and Dawsons creek. Recycled and updated from last time this was topical.]
