In a stunning pivot away from the last two centuries of maritime decline, the Chancellor has announced plans to resurrect British shipbuilding with the kind of ambition normally reserved for steampunk fan fiction. Speaking to Labour’s conference, he outlined a vision so elaborate it makes the Great Exhibition of 1851 look like a car boot sale.
The centrepiece of this new industrial revolution: floating shipyards that hover above the English Channel, powered by a combination of coal-fired engines and what officials are calling “optimism-based propulsion.” Engineers are reportedly baffled but supportive.
But shipyards alone do not a renaissance make. The Chancellor also promised that every British factory will be staffed by automated tea-making robots, each programmed to brew a perfect cup at precisely 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., regardless of whether anyone actually wants tea. This, he assured conference attendees, will boost productivity by making workers so caffeinated they forget to clock out.
When pressed on funding, officials suggested the entire operation would be financed through a new tax on nostalgia—specifically, on anyone who owns a brass compass or refers to the 1950s as “the good old days.”
The opposition has already called the plan “ambitious.” Industry experts used the word “physics.” Both are technically correct.