Library closures: perverts with ‘fewer places to wank’

Library News: Ed Miliband launched a scathing attack on the Coalition’s plan to enforce library closures today, appalled by the government’s suggestion that libraries are an unnecessary expense because ‘reading is a privilege of the white middle classes who can afford to buy books’.

“I remind my right honourable friends,” he told an unusually rowdy House of Commons, “that not only are libraries the beating heart of any community but – as several of the right honourable gentlemen I see before me know only too well – they additionally provide an invaluable place for the nation’s perverts to masturbate in.”

“While the majority of the population prefer to conduct this activity in private,” Miliband continued, “it has long been the tradition in this country that certain areas of public libraries have been set aside for men who smell of onions to rub themselves off.”

“Some might utilise a customised trouser pocket while gazing along the Social Sciences. Others might unleash themselves more fully, perhaps somewhere between Technology and Applied Arts.”

“I ask the House – where are these men meant to go? Bus stops? Parks? Swimming pool changing-rooms? Is this not yet further proof that this government is totally out of step with both social reality and public opinion?”

As both sides of the house pointed and cheered at each other, Miliband was forced to shout over the noise.

“Mr. Speaker, once again David Cameron is determined to make struggling minorities pay the cost of this recession – while bank bosses, ensconced in a private offices, can freely peruse their profit reports with one hand down a pair of Savile Row trousers – trousers, Mr. Speaker, that were paid for by the tax payer.”

Labour benches erupted in applause. It is quite that library closures are rapidly transforming into a much more difficult issue than the government had anticipated.

“The real sparks are going to fly when this gets to the House of Lords,” said one party insider. “There are a few elderly gentlemen in there for whom this is a very sticky subject indeed.”