Beepbebebebeepbebeep… News reaching us from Westminster… Beepbebebebeep… Prime Minister Gordon Brown reshuffles cabinet… Beepbebebebeepbebeep… Peter Mandelson returns… Beepbebebebeep… again… Beepbebebebeepbebeep… public cry out for sarcastic casting of movie adaptation….
Those are the facts on the ground this afternoon as Gordon Brown once again displays his firm command over British politics by appointing to the position of business secretary a man with whom he's spent the best part of 15 years scrapping.
We want to know who you'd cast as Mandy in a movie of the last days of the Brown regime, sorry, the glorious second coming of the Brown government. Who would you choose? Michael Sheen can get a politician down pat, Jeremy Irons has the requisite build and steely demeanour, Robert Downey Jr has some of the necessary qualities too – he's been sacked from a few jobs himself, after all.
Mandy's not alone in hitting the spotlight today, however. David Yelland, alopecian former editor of the Sun, was rumoured this morning to step into the role of head of communications at number 10 (where he'd square off against his former showbiz editor at the Sun, Andy Coulson, now in charge of comms for the Tories). Geoff Hoon, the former defence secretary whose name sounds best when howled like a wolf, is back in the game promoted from chief whip to transport secretary. And, finally, poor old Hilary Benn may have kept his job as Environment secretary, but he's lost the only part of it that really mattered – climate change – to the young turk with the dead eyes, Ed Miliband.
Here's the castlist and our own suggestions. We'd also like a catchline (we're playing this as farce by the way, as befits the rule of history repeating itself). We've suggested one of those too…
Peter Mandelson: David Walliams
David Yelland: Matt Lucas
Andy Coulson: Martin Freeman
Geoff Hoon: Dennis Lawson
Hilary Benn: John Cleese
Gordon Brown: Thomas Turgoose
Ruth Kelly: Jimmie Krankie
Title: Return of the Kingmaker
Catchline: "Third time's the charm…"
