A young man named Gordon bought a donkey from an old farmer for £100. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day, but when the farmer drove up he said, "Sorry son, but I have some bad news ... the donkey is on my truck, but unfortunately he's dead".
Gordon replied, "Well then, just give me my money back".
The farmer said, "I can't do that, because I've spent it already".
Gordon said, "OK then, well just unload the donkey anyway".
The farmer asked, "What are you going to do with him?"
Gordon answered, "I'm going to raffle him off".
To which the farmer exclaimed, "Surely you can't raffle off a dead donkey!"
But Gordon, with a wicked smile on his face said, "Of course I can, you watch me. I just won't bother to tell anybody that it's dead".
A month later the farmer met Gordon and asked, "What happened with that dead donkey?"
Gordon said, "I raffled it off, sold 500 tickets at two pounds apiece, and made a huge, fat profit!"
Totally amazed, the farmer asked, "Didn't anyone complain that you had stolen their money because you lied about the donkey being dead?"
To which Gordon replied, "The only guy who found out about the donkey being dead was the raffle winner when he came to claim his prize. So I gave him his £2 ticket money back plus an extra £200, which as you know is double the going rate for a donkey, so he thought I was a great guy!"
Gordon grew up and eventually became the Chancellor of the Exchequer. No matter how many times he lied or how much money he stole from the British voters, as long as he gave them back some of the stolen money, most of them thought he was a great guy.
The moral of this story is that if you think Gordon is about to play fair and do something for the everyday people of this country for once in his miserable, lying life, think again.
You'll be better off flogging a dead donkey.
