In a stunning late-breaking development that has sent shockwaves through the Foreign Office's gin cabinet, Venezuelan prisoners have had the audacity to protest their mistreatment, prompting Her Majesty's Government to dust off its human rights concernometer and register a formal 'we are watching with concern.'
Yes, dear reader, you heard it here first. British officials, whose previous engagements with Venezuela consisted largely of mispronouncing 'Hugo Chávez' at dinner parties, have suddenly become ardent defenders of penal reform. One can almost hear the collective gasp from Whitehall as they realised that prison conditions in a country with a collapsing economy might not be up to the standards of a Premier League footballer's man cave.
The protests, which involved inmates demanding things like 'basic sanitation' and 'not being beaten by guards' (palpably unreasonable requests in the current geopolitical climate), have ignited a firestorm of concern from London. Foreign Office sources, speaking on condition of anonymity (because speaking openly about human rights is apparently as dangerous as a Venezuelan prison), confided that they are 'monitoring the situation closely.' This is diplomatic code for 'we have no intention of doing anything but we need to look like we care.'
Of course, the irony is as thick as the smog over the M25. Here is a government that has serenely overseen the slow decay of its own prison system, where overcrowding and underfunding are as British as queueing and complaining about the weather, suddenly finding its moral compass pointing towards Caracas. It is like a man with a gambling addiction tutting at his neighbour's credit card debt.
The prisoners, no doubt inspired by the British tradition of polite rebellion, have reportedly drafted a list of demands that includes: one toilet per 50 inmates, the occasional meal that isn't grey, and the right to not be summarily executed. Radical stuff. Meanwhile, UK ministers are consulting with experts to determine whether these requests fall under 'acceptable standards' or 'communist propaganda.'
But let us not be too harsh. Perhaps this is a genuine epiphany, a Damascene conversion on the road to the cocktail hour. Perhaps our esteemed leaders have finally realised that human rights are not just something you weaponise against countries with oil you want. Or perhaps it is just another Thursday in the theatre of the absurd we call international relations.
As I file this report from my desk, which is strewn with empty tonic bottles and what might be a shred of moral outrage, I can only offer this: to the prisoners of Venezuela, do not hold your breath for salvation from the land of Pimm's and posh concern. The best you can hope for is a strongly worded tweet from an MP who has never set foot in South America, and the knowledge that somewhere, in a London office, someone is typing 'deeply troubled' into a statement.
In the meantime, I shall raise a glass of questionable gin to the universal language of protest, and hope that somewhere, a British diplomat is genuinely feeling a fraction of the concern they pretend to have. Cheers.
