BARRIE HUDSON: Send for the X-squad

It seems all is not well with the Oasis, which the authority farmed out to the private sector a while back.

Those who backed the idea told us the decision was taken in a calm and measured way, paying special attention to economic realities and likely outcomes.

Opponents, in contrast, said the procedure was about as calm and measured as a nervous hot air balloon pilot chucking sandbags over the side in order to avoid looming high voltage cables.

Various local firms are now owed large chunks of cash, and the whole thing has come to a head only months after the report into the wifi fiasco.

In spite of this, we shouldn’t pour scorn on the senior decision-makers and highly-paid officials involved. That would be completely pointless, as well as unfair, as it’s not just here that such things happen.

What we should do instead is a nationwide sweep to identify these people and find them tasks commensurate with their very special talents. We could give them a fancy name such as X-Squad – an elite force whose covert mission would be to right the wrongs of Britain and the world.

A good start would be to have the team tackle the scourge of drugs. We could pay off all the established kingpins and put X-Squad members in charge.

I reckon it’d take less than a year before supplies of drugs completely dried up. Hard drug imports, for example, would be sent to the wrong destinations, never to be seen again, because somebody made a mistake with the address slips.

Entire multi-million pound shipments would be stolen and taken to foreign countries instead because somebody forgot to check the credentials of an international crime partner.

Every lab producing legal highs would blow up because whoever was in charge failed to convert metric to imperial or whatever, and every cannabis farm would become an arid wasteland while the new farmers argued over who was responsible for the watering.

In fact, organised crime as a whole could be eradicated by the simple expedient of sending X-Squad to infiltrate it. They’d then be in overall charge of countless career criminals and the results would be spectacular.

Imagine a Britain where there were no bank robberies because the robbers kept being given the wrong addresses, or out-of-date addresses of places that turned out to have become burger bars or knitting shops some time around 1998.

Or a Britain where there were no insurance fires because the hired arsonists were mistakenly issued lemon squash instead of petrol.

Or a Britain where there were no contract killings because administrative mix-ups meant the assassins were issued with bowls of soup or sticks of rhubarb instead of silenced automatics.

Once the squad had proved its skills domestically, they could be sent out into the rest of the world, especially to places of civil war and oppression. As with organised crime, the best strategy would be for X-Squad to infiltrate the upper ranks of the warring factions.

Then, no matter how many weapons and explosive devices were in circulation to start with, there’d be a shortage within weeks and nobody would be able to shoot each other or blow each other up.

The only problem I can foresee would be in desert regions, where the inevitable sand shortages might be a worry.

• AND now a brief guide to securing an honour.

If you want a relatively low-ranking honour, you might consider devoting decades of your life to your community, making the world a better place in very real ways for countless of your fellow human beings.

Another way of securing a relatively low-ranking honour, if you are a truly remarkable human being and you find yourself diagnosed with a life-limiting illness at a young age, is to spend your final weeks, days and hours working with breathtaking courage to prevent others from suffering your fate.

Of course, if you fall into either of these categories, the chances are that honours are the last thing on your mind.

If you want to secure a high-ranking honour, tried and trusted methods include being a politician and not rocking the boat, or being a senior figure in business who doesn’t shy away from difficult decisions – ie decisions to chuck people on a thousandth of your salary on to the scrapheap.

Another way is to state something obvious, such as that certain types of war crime are abominable and must be eradicated. You don’t actually have to say how they might be eradicated or, indeed, show any evidence whatsoever that you have helped to prevent a single instance of the crime or helped to being a single perpetrator to justice.

Now then, some of you will be saying: “But I state the obvious all the time, so where’s my knighthood or damehood?”

You should have allowed me to finish.

You see, stating the obvious only earns you a high honour if you’re dead famous and glamorous, and allow yourself to be seen in the company of politicians, many of whose wars help to cause war crimes in the first place.

And who look as smug in your company as hitherto shunned adolescents who’ve unexpectedly been asked on a date by the coolest person in class...

• A NEW anti-crime community messaging scheme is to be piloted in West Swindon.

The brainchild of the police and crime commissioner, it involves alerts being sent to residents who are at risk of crime. The scheme will possibly be rolled out to the rest of the town.

Call me contrary, but if there are dodgy people floating around my neighbourhood, I might not be completely reassured by a message saying: “There R dodgy ppl floating round yr neighbourhood.”

I can’t help imagining the ensuing text conversation: “What R U going to do about dodgy ppl?”

“What do U mean?”

“Send somebody to wait 4 dodgy ppl?”

“ROFL.”