"Emergency Services Telephone Number" (1977-1979)

In 1977, Scarfolk Council was disconcerted to learn that poor citizens and immigrants had figured out how to call the emergency services.

The council quickly launched a new number, which it claimed would better handle the increasing volume of emergency calls, and after three years the government proudly announced a significant decrease in emergency calls overall.

However, the telephone number (when it was finally identified) was traced to an answering machine in an industrial estate portacabin, which was completely deserted.

When questioned about the unattended service, a council spokesman stated that the intention was to "empower average and below-average people by enabling them to find their own solutions to problems which are probably the result of their own negligent actions in the first place."

Fully-working emergency services, which were of course funded by the taxpayer and the sale of undesirables to mediocre countries, were still available, but only to a select group of invited people, many of whom were banking and corporate magnates, as well as politicians, their friends, families and pets.

Emergencies most often reported included: strain brought on by stirring Martinis and not being able to reach the television from the bed to change channels. Additionally, the fire service was frequently called upon by beneficiaries to hose down citizens picketing their country estates.

Family Planning & Recycling (1972-1979)

An adult's social status in 1970s Scarfolk was in part determined by the worth of its offspring. However, until 1972 there was no central mechanism in place to define and classify a child's usefulness (or lack thereof).

Scarfolk Council was the first in the UK to implement the MVS (Minor Value System), which not only assessed the qualities and flaws of each child, but also ranked them in order of financial worth.

Though a very small percentage of parents could retire on the proceeds from the private sale of their offspring, many were disappointed to learn that their children were not as profitable as they had hoped. In 1975, 42% of Scarfolk's young were found to be less valuable than an inflatable garden paddling pool and 8.5% were only as valuable as a can of tuna.

To stop the abandonment of unwanted children at motorway service stations, the government created a scheme that enabled parents to sell their unsatisfactory progeny to the council at a fixed price. Parents welcomed the scheme and hundreds of children disappeared from Scarfolk homes overnight.

Coincidentally, the price of pet food plummeted and the safety of pharmaceutical products increased.