It was a slow start to the first working day of the new regime. Boris Johnson had barely stumbled out of bed, and Dominic Cummings even had time to turn his T-shirt inside out and undo his laces before the snapper arrived to photograph their artfully casual breakfast meeting shortly after 8am.
The only sense of urgency was coming from Dilyn the Downing Street dog, who was scratching at the door, desperate to be let out. Then again, he had been dying to escape ever since he had made the mistake of catching Carrie’s eye at the dogs’ home. How dumb was that! Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine. Don’t play it again, Dilyn.
This was the new normal for the People’s Government. A morning frenzy of inactivity. Before the election, Downing Street had been on high alert from six o’clock onwards every morning, with everyone listening to the Radio 4 Today programme dreading the moment a minister said something idiotic or was unable to answer a single question. But now that Classic Dom had banned anyone in government from appearing on a BBC programme so obviously biased that even Labour was questioning its impartiality, everyone could chill a bit.
Just as Dom and Boris were settling down to eat a light breakfast of Shreddies and crushed valium with a Uri Geller spoon, as they tried to brainstorm ideas that might play well in northern towns they had never known existed before the previous Thursday, a panic-stricken aide burst into the kitchen. “It’s a disaster,” she garbled. “David Davis has somehow found his way on to the Today programme.”
“How the hell did that happen?” Dom growled. “He is literally one of the dimmest members of the Tory party. And that’s really saying something.”
“I’m not sure,” said the aide. “I guess he imagined the blanket omertà didn’t apply to ex-ministers.”
“Shit, shit, shit. How can we be a one-nation party if we don’t all talk with one voice? Mine. Anyway, how bad is it?”
“Pretty bad,” the aide admitted. “He’s already said that Boris believes in something ...”
“Do I?” asked Boris.
“No. But from now on, you’ll believe in whatever I tell you to,” Dom said, walking across the room to turn up the radio. “Now shut the fuck up as we listen to the rest of this.”
Everyone fell silent as Davis explained his vision for the coming year. Of course there would be divergence with the EU. A great deal in some areas, not so much in others. And there would be very bumpy times ahead. But it was his considered opinion that the EU would eventually cave in, just as it had by offering Boris the same deal that he and Theresa May had rejected 18 months earlier, and that even if it didn’t then WTO rules would be no big deal as the whole country would be worse off under either scenario.
People were just going to have to learn to accept that they would inevitably be let down by the new government. There were so many different new factions in the new Tory party – the old home counties heartlands and the former Labour voters in the north – that it would be impossible to keep everyone happy. So the simplest and fairest way forward was to let everyone down. Davis wasn’t called the master military tactician for nothing. Or at all.
Dom picked up the radio and hurled it on to the floor. Fragments of metal and plastic sprayed across the room. Dilyn shrugged. He’d seen this all before. There were now four of them in this marriage. “Why does that idiot think I spent months coaching you to say nothing but ‘Get Brexit Done’?” Dom yelled. Boris kept his head down, avoiding eye contact. He knew better than to interrupt Dom when he was going off on one.
“The whole point was to make everyone think Brexit was a done deal,” Dom continued. “Now that moron Davis has given the game away that Brexit has barely begun. Jesus wept! We were meant to have until at least the new year before people realised we were going to disappoint them. Happy sodding Christmas to you too, Dave.”
The atmosphere was toxic inside No 10 for much of the rest of the day as Dom tried to work out how best to silence the BBC. What better way for a one-nation party to unite the country than to stop its most respected broadcaster from asking awkward questions of the People’s Government? All it needed was someone both gullible and biddable to oversee the hatchet job on the Beeb. Someone to replace Nicky Morgan.
Dom undid his trousers and kicked the furniture as he racked his brains for the right person. But there was no one better than Morgan. She had been the only woman during the election campaign who could be relied on to be sent on media rounds to explain how 31,000 nurses were really 50,000. Mainly because her maths was that bad. But she had already stood down as an MP. So he’d just stick two fingers up to the entire country, appoint her to the Lords and keep her in the cabinet. Brilliant. The People’s Government partly run from the unelected Lords. Classic Dom.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Boris said anxiously.
“Who is in charge here?” Dom snapped.
“You are.”
John Crace’s new book, Decline and Fail: Read in Case of Political Apocalypse, is published by Guardian Faber. To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £15, online orders only. Phone orders min. p&p of £1.99.
