Osborne to bring back Esso Tiger Tokens

Economic News: As anti-austerity protests make their presence felt in financial centres across the globe, the British Government is hoping to stabilize the crisis by reintroducing a currency once respected for ‘the calming power of its mediocrity’.

“If we still had the Esso Tiger Token we might never have got into this mess,” Chancellor George Osbourne said yesterday whilst visiting a Faversham Primary School, “that’s why from next week it will once again be possible to exchange these tokens for any product, just so long as it’s a pack of four cut-glass tumblers”

Attentions Across Britain, attentions immediately switched from cuts in wages, pensions and employment to rooting around elderly parents’ wardrobes for the once-defunct bills.

Osbourne, wearing a now coveted red Esso bomber jacket, spoke passionately of his belief that beyond ‘steadying the ship’, tiger tokens ‘could rescue the economy’: “The bonus is that the public will have to spend more on fuel if they want more tokens,” he continued, “especially if they want the Hitachi Hi Fi Tower”.

The move has worried some financial experts however, with a four bedroom Chiswick townhouse already reported to have gone in exchange for a complete 1990 World Cup Coin Collection.

“All this measure will do is create a new elite,” warned Deloitte’s Mark Wyatt. “Where once bankers and traders could accrue wealth from gambling with the savings of the poor, what kind of world will we live in where you can get anything you want with two Des Walkers and a Peter Beardsley?”

Story: Dave Anderson