The suits – no ties, of course – sit around a table. After nearly a decade and a half, they need to come up with some ideas, fast.
‘So, erm, what would sound ‘conservative’?’ asks a minister, nervously.
For the last 14 years to utter that word within the Cabinet – it is the unmentionable ‘c word’ within government circles – would have you laughed out the room. The modern Conservative politician is as conservative as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is democratic, you see.
Gloomy eyes and furrowed brows aplenty. Some fiddle with their pens, some hold their heads in their hands. It is not an easy feat to think of a right-wing policy when one’s noggin is full of open borders, the cult of climate and the contradictory, competing demands of Diversity, Inclusion and Equity.
All the low hanging fruit of sure-fire, right-wing vote-winners has been grabbed. Smoking bans, millennia-high immigration, Net Zero. It’s tough to conjure up even more policies when one has had such an illustrious and creative stint in government. Fourteen years of such stellar performance would tire anyone out.
‘How about committing to 50% of all newly qualified teachers being transgender?’ ventures one brave soul.
‘No, we trialled that with a focus group already. Didn’t go down well. Just shows you how illiberal our voters are,’ comes an irritated reply.
The pack of impotent politicians ponders pointlessly.
Suddenly, the television on the wall – forever showing the day’s rolling headlines – flicks to an image of a man in battle fatigues looking out of place amid a sea of suits. A long peroration is delivered, culminating in a request of a few more billion quid and the mandatory ‘Slava Ukraini’.
Sunak looks up. Oozing the authority of a sixth form head boy organising the annual fun run, he announces boldly: ‘Guys, that’s it: military service. That’s the policy. It sounds so conservative. Think national servicemen in Korea, the Blitz and all that. It shores up the vote on our right and shows Starmer that we mean business!’
Over the next few minutes, the entire policy is hammered out on the back of a napkin, making it among most fully developed proposals in the last fourteen years. Exhausted by this exertion, some of the nation’s greatest minds retire to the taxpayer subsidised bar.
In a corner of the drinkery – who knew you could find a G&T for £2 in the nation’s capital? Why is everyone making such a meal out of inflation? Gosh! – one lone voice confides his doubts to another.
‘You see, the thing is – about this national service stuff – do you think it’ll actually work?’
‘Why not, old boy?’, comes a confident retort, ‘you heard Sunak himself – it’s red meat to our voter base! Old Rishi has never stepped a foot wrong yet!’
His face clouds with doubt.
‘You see, it’s just, this isn’t 1952 anymore. The youth, well, none of them want to fight for the country. Some of them just think it’s a busted flush, some hate it, and the rest, well, let’s say their allegiances lie elsewhere,’ he utters in hushed tones.
He continues: ‘Most of them can’t afford anywhere to live, especially in London. We’ve imported hundreds and thousands of foreigners to suppress their wages too. Starting salaries in London, unless you’re in investment banking or whatever, haven’t moved since 2008. We’ve allowed society to preach to them, from top to bottom, that patriotism is a slur and that Britishness is to be abhorred.’
‘And now, we seem to think, that implementing a policy that appeals to retirees in the Tory shires is a good idea. The only effect it’ll have is to dissuade the last couple dozen young voters we have left.’
His partner in conversation replies, ‘Well, that’s because they’re all just snowflakes! This is exactly what they need – a kick up the backside!’
The more doubtful of the pair stares out the window and over the Thames. Regret begins to colour his thoughts. Fourteen years squandered, every metric conceivable having worsened in the intervening period. All under his watch.
The lunches, the interviews, the semi-celebrity status. It was all good fun. The Punch and Judy politics, the feigned disagreement with the other side. It’s all coming to an end, though he’s sure to find a position on the board of some slightly dodgy company.
But it’s all a far cry from the dreams that made him become a politician. Stories of Churchill, Disraeli and Gladstone. The chance to leave one’s mark and make your country a better place. One’s shot for a place in the history books.
Yet, instead the likes of our politician fattened themselves on the public purse, leaving behind no legacy but the slowly rotting structure of a misgoverned nation. The stabbings, the potholes, the rape-gangs; they were all part of the system that let these manifestations of failure take hold with scant resistance.
Amid such thoughts he suddenly feels inadequate. In a Palace variously inhabited by some of history’s greatest figures, he is but a pygmy.
The realisation is a bit much to take in.
Instead of confronting this surge of reality, he decides it’s time for another taxpayer-subsidised bevvy instead.
After all they’ll be out of a job soon: best to enjoy the perks that come with overseeing a nation’s destruction while one still can.
Yesterday a blogger listed those MPs who voted in favour of covid passports. I tried to urge my MP to vote against but he claimed not to know anyone who had suffered an adverse reaction. Blindness to reality is an admirable quality, particularly useful given this mornings news from the Middle East. I still boil with anger thinking of MPs voting to separate us into vaxxed and “the disobedient”, an apartheid state generating ill feeling between citizens, and all over the injection of an American bio weapon that supposedly protected us against a novel naturally occurring pathogen that appears to be a deliberately spread biochemical agent. And they didn’t know? No wonder the House empties when the matter is debated and the ONS tries every trick to hide the truth.
We don’t need a general election. We need a day of reckoning.
Brilliant satire - and yet so sadly true. I was waiting for you to develop the snowflake reaction to National Service further by one of the worn party apparatchiks sitting round the table to come up with Community Service alternative. What a brilliant idea! Surely that will appease all the socially conscious liberal doubters out there that we mean business plus at the same time allay any fears our oh so tender snowflakes might have about voting for us. But this sudden activity of the brain which has been dormant for the past umpteen years must be catching. It’s then decided that what they actually mean by National Service is not route marches and discipline or heaven forbid actually learning how to fire a gun but rather a year solving crypto puzzles. Oh what a winner!! It covers all the bases as our US friends would say.
The fact that the majority of teenagers who are churned out of our schools don’t even know what a Soduko puzzle is or understand even rudimentary logic is beside the point. It’s a sure vote winner - “Let’s go for it cries the Hon. Member for ______ as he then proudly announces his contribution to the cause and hands in his resignation letter.
As the old saying goes “You couldn’t make it up if you tried”
Suddenly the Raving Monster Loony Party comes into my head.