Somewhere in Whitehall ...
By Tony Watts - Editor - 19/06/2008
“Minister, not great news I’m afraid.”
“Oh, God, I’ve just into the office, Peters. Can’t you let me even have a coffee before ruining the rest of the day?”
“Sorry, Sir, it’s just that there’s every chance the media are going to be crawling over this one in hours – we need to get everyone briefed and on message.”
“So what is it this time? Are we going to run out of petrol by lunchtime? Has the price of apples gone bananas? Is some busybody complaining about me employing my grandfather as a research assistant, God rest his soul.”
“No worse than that, Minister. Another top secret file has gone AWOL. It can only be a matter of time before it turns up.”
“Good grief, who is it this time? Not one of the illegal immigrants working in security again is it? I told the PM that it was a false economy …
“No, Minister, bit closer to home afraid. It’s your Under Secretary.”
“Smithers? He’s a man I’d trust with my life, for God’s sake. He was at Eton with me. What more do you need to know about how trustworthy he is?”
“Guy Burgess did go to Eton too, Sir.”
“One bad apple …”
“And Lord Lucan …”
“Yes, OK, well that’s the sort of smart ass comment I’d expect from an old Harrovian. So what’s he lost? – it can’t be that bad. His only brief is for looking after the interests of the carpet slipper industry. Got to look after fellow old boys, you know.”
“Unfortunately he got a bit bored with that, Sir. He decided to take over the ‘office sweepstake’.”
“Not THE ‘office sweepstake’ …”
“Yes, sir.”
“The one on when Golden Brown would be booted out of number 10 …”
“Precisely, Sir. It’s proved very popular.”
“I know that, there must be three or four hundred names on that sweepstake – everyone on our side of the house has put a tenner on that.”
“Actually, not everyone is on there. Mr Brown himself, for instance.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure, sir. Presbyterian upbringing and all that. I don’t think he suspects a thing. And anyway, it wouldn’t be fair him entering – inside track and all that.”
“I don’t think he’ll be the one deciding, Peters. Anyway it will come as a bit of a shock if this goes public. Here we all are saying he has our undivided support, steady hand on the tiller and all that, and most of his party in the House and half of the Labour peers are putting a punt on him going well before the next election.”
“The media will have a field day I’m afraid, Sir. Apparently he left it at his girlfriend’s flat, or at least his girlfriend’s pimp’s flat. She got raided by the drugs squad, the file was then on its way back to Scotland Yard when the police officer carrying it dropped into a gay club in Soho for a pint and a ploughman ...”
“Don’t you mean a ploughman’s?”
“No, sir, apparently they all dress up in different working gear there. And the ploughman – we suspect – is the one who has it now and probably making a beeline to one of the red-tops.”
“We’ve got two very faint hopes here, Peters. One is we hope that Gordon turns a blind eye to the whole thing.”
“That’s not in very good taste, Minister.”
“Or we say the story is so fantastic that it must be the work of someone’s diseased imagination. I mean – MPs betting against the PM, files going missing, prostitution, drugs, gay bars … who’s going to believe politicians would get mixed up in all of that?”
“Shall I prepare your resignation letter now, Minister?”