UK Donates 15M Private Records to Help Bolster Russian Economy

Erin BarkleyTuesday, November 20, 2007

This post is part of Push the Third Button Twice, a ~2 month adventure where I would write parody articles based on the news as it happened — in 15 minutes or less. The posts are credited to my a fictional "staff", but they're actually all me. I apologize in advance.

In what is being widely hailed as an act of selfless charity, the UK government has donated a set of unencrypted discs containing vital statistics on 15 million of its citizens to entrepreneurs in Russia, in a bid to help promote economic growth in Eastern Europe.

“Earlier reports that the discs were lost are erroneous,” said a source inside Revenue and Customs who declined to be named, “The transfer was part of an initiative planned by the Prime Minister’s Office, and coordinated by the Russian government through a Mr Yakov, who I believe has only one eye. He scares me.”

According to emails acquired by PTTBT, the “Kickstart Connections” program aims to provide jobs for up to 15 workers in Europe at bulk mailing enterprises across the region. Another peripheral program intends to use the same, recycled disks, for what is known as “Identity Enhancement”, which is billed as “letting citizens experience the shadier side of life without all the fuss of actually doing it.”

Still, some critics say the program will do nothing to help the poorest Russians, despite government assurances.

“It’s a well-known fact that these black-market enterprises are built to enrich the owners, while leaving the workforce underpaid and virtually enslaved,” said Sir James Haughty of analyst firm Haughty & McConaughey. “I might even go so far as to call the contractors involved common criminals. If I did not have a large man named Gregori standing behind me at the moment. Help.”

The Prime Minister’s Office insisted that the program and all its participants had nothing but charity in their minds, leading up to the holiday season.

“It’s a way of bringing a smile to some Russian child’s face this Christmas, and there’s nothing scandalous about that,” said a spokesman for the PM. “Now if you’ll excuse me, Mr Brown and Mr Putin have to catch a plane to Barbados to celebrate the… uh… charity.”