BRITAIN’S already-overstretched Ikea stores cannot cope with a growing population, it was claimed last night.
According to new figures from the Office for National Statistics, factors including immigration and the baby boom will increase the UK’s citizenship to 70 million by 2026. But many could be left unable to furnish their homes with stylish yet economical simplicity as Ikea stores are overwhelmed to the point of anarchy.
Professor Henry Brubaker, of the Institute for Studies, said: “Imagine Ikea’s deliberately labyrinthine corridors blocked with sweaty, heavy masses of humanity clambering mercilessly over each other, crushing the weak and the elderly underfoot in their relentless quest for the nice things.
“OK you don’t have to imagine it, you could just visit this Saturday, but the trust me it’s going to get worse.
“There will soon be ten million extra humans and they’ll each want, at the very least, a Billy bookcase and a Kulla pendant lamp.
“Even those few who don’t want anything specific from Ikea will still go there every other Saturday, just because.
“When product stocks inevitably run out, shoppers will refuse to leave, afraid that things will be re-stocked and sold out again in their absence.
“Thus we will see the beginnings of a permanent mass migration into Ikea, with families sleeping on the demonstration futons, subsisting on meatballs and 99p breakfasts.
“Inevitably tribal groups will form, the natives of each department forging their own specific cultural identities. There will be bloody battles over the stores’ best products, with the kitchen-section dwellers likely to dominate because they’ll have all the sharp objects.
“As conditions within the stores deteriorate faeces and blood will cake the walls. Residents or ‘Ikeans’ will barricade the doors with colour co-ordinated Ektorp sofas while those desperate civilians left outside will pound at the walls until their fists are bloody.”
Plumber Tom Logan said: “We’re letting more and more people into the country when there aren’t enough Billy bookcases for those who were born here.
“But if they are going to come here and buy our cheap but modish furniture, they should at least have the decency to shop online.”
