Richard Branson, owner of the Branson Pickles brand and a couple of airlines, has begged the government for a bailout as he doesn’t want to squander his immeasurable fortune keeping things afloat.
Branson, who gave the world Branson’s tangy pickle with or without chunks and has, apparently, also got some business interests in a lesser known company called Virgin Atlantic, has pleaded with the government to give him free money as he only has thirty yachts, six islands and several trillion pounds left.
The nicotine haired multi-gazilionaire, whose company coined the phrase ‘bring out the Branson’, is said to be reluctant to dip into any of his own vast fortune to cover the wages of pesky employees during the Coronavirus crisis as ‘he doesn’t want to’.
The disgustingly rich business mogul is not alone in his struggle to avoid using personal wealth to stay in business during the pandemic.
Easyjet owner Stelios Haji-Ioannou, who appeared alongside his son on Britain’s Got Talent as Stelios Flatly, has been given £600 million to keep his company afloat.
Meanwhile, even smaller and less well known companies are struggling. Boeing have asked for £41 billion from the government after claiming they are strapped for dough, blaming the Coronavirus for their cashflow problems and definitely not super inflated bonuses paid to CEOs or extravagant shareholder dividends.
Even newfangled modern interweb companies like Uber and AirBnB are falling on their hands and knees as they plead for money to stay above water, ensuring shareholders and founders don’t lose 15% of their platinum plated jets and super cars.
Sir Tarquin Tessmarker-Smythe III, a bank CEO, commented on the need for ‘socialism for the rich’ in an open letter to the government this week, saying:
“I have friends who have been forced to cut down to six crates of Dom Pérignon a week instead of the usual twelve. Most of them wouldn’t even be able to cover a twelve seat corporate dinner at The Dorchester if the Dorchester were even open. At least, not if they had to pay for dessert too.”
“The miserable depths of depravity Britain’s upper classes have been reduced to in an effort to maintain the illusion that they are better than everyone else is a national scandal. How am I even supposed to entertain investors from Saudi Arabia if I can’t buy them each a new Ferrari?”
The Tory government sympathised with massively wealthy business owners today saying “those who need a bailout will get one, especially if they’re really really ridiculously grotesquely rich. We’re Tories, so we’re obviously prioritising big business.”
“Everyone else should just remember that the money trickles down, eventually. Probably. If these business owners feel like it should. Which they probably won’t. But they might. Keep your fingers crossed.”
The Daily Shunt 