By Dave Watt
Hello Subjects,
Although a lot of people wouldn’t think so, old Johnny Politics gets a fair run out at Buck House, Balmoral and Windsor. Actually, far from the popular conception of our being the ultimate establishment figures the whole family is full of lefties of one kind or another and, of course, we’re all republicans. Needless to say this is not generally known and we’ve had to do some pretty convincing handsprings in the past to keep it quiet.
Having said that there is this little demon inside one’s head that longs to appear on prime time television with some major groveller like Jenny Bond and say “Actually, my entire family are a bunch of commie republicans – by the way, would you like to buy a Socialist Worker?” and watch the sight of an immediate brown tsunami cascading down the back of her Debenhams tights and gathering round her ankles.
There you go – the idle musings that go on inside one’s bonce.
As I’ve told you we’re all lefty republicans you’re probably imagining all is sweetness and light at Chez Balmoral but sadly this isn’t the case. You may or may not know but Mumsy’s family tend to be hard line Stalinists whereas my ex, although originally left-ish wasn’t too bothered about which brand until she attended Open University Summer School at Stirling Uni in the mid 1980s whereupon she became a wild-eyed Trotskyite after meeting a youthful Tom Sheridan there. (Well, she was certainly looking pretty wild-eyed about something when she returned.)
Unfortunately, this generated some frightful tussles over the kedgeree as she, Mumsy and Gran argued the toss about the Fourth International, collectivisation, dialectical materialism, etc etc. My ex obligingly quoting Lenin’s dictum that ‘a worker who thinks doesn’t drink and a worker who drinks doesn’t think’ while Gran was punishing the Gordon’s Gin probably wasn’t much help as far as quiet breakfasts went.
Our meeting with Julian and Sandy
Well, the day after the appalling vote on UTG the family was flown down to London to ‘receive’ Julian and Sandy (Messrs Cameron and Clegg). I’m not sure of the political manoeuvrings that went on to bring these two items together but I gather that young Clegg, having been Liberal with his favours for many years had, after a brief flirtation, decided to climb into bed with David Cameron and some other ex-public schoolboys in order to form a government.
Our flight down was uneventful – apart from one unfortunate incident. Let me first say here that no blame can be attached to the cabin crew. I’m sure it was simply an act of misguided kindness that induced them to feed the corgis all the leftovers from the Breakfast Pheasant Special which the greedy little ogres polished off to the last crumb. Unsurprisingly, this caused massive internal turmoil in their already volatile intestines which was later to have unfortunate consequences. Luckily for the passengers and crew the explosive results were kept in check by the pressurised cabin but, on opening the cabin doors at Heathrow, there was such an explosion of intestinal gasses that we fled the plane in double quick time leaving the security guards to bundle the flatulent hounds into the back of a state car behind a horrified chauffeur.
We arrived back at Buck House to find that Dad had returned from Greece and was standing in the hallway grinning unsteadily and by this plus the half empty litre bottle of ouzo on the hall table he had obviously been topping up the in-flight ‘hospitality’. Mumsy’s lips tightened at the sight and I’m sure Dad’s residence permit in the doghouse would have been quickly renewed except for a noisy commotion breaking out behind us. We turned to see the chauffeur stagger through the door, blank eyed and staring like Oscar Wilde getting nicked at the Cadogan Hotel. Accompanying him was a flock of yapping and unbelievably flatulent corgis who’s hind legs were by now actually being lifted off the carpet by the force of their posterior blasts.
The unfortunate chauffeur was helped off by a couple of flunkeys and the family quickly headed off to the reception room while Mumsy berated a ‘rather merry’ Greek anarchist in muttered fury. Owing to dad’s ‘unfortunate condition’ he was relegated to a back row seat as Mumsy sat and practiced looking regal while we waited for Messrs Clegg and Cameron to be shown in to the Royal Presence. This was duly done and the two items (one of which looked a bit like Colin Firth and the other who had a rather bland, egg like face) appeared at the door and approached Mumsy for the Great Occasion.
And thus it came to pass that the request to form the new government of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was brought and duly approved by the reigning monarch, the awful majesty of this solemn moment only broken by the postern blasts and frantically-scrabbling claws of the hapless corgis and a drunken falsetto voice from the back row intoning “Ooooh, hello, I’m Julian & this is my friend Sandy, we’re ‘Bona-Tories’. How fantabulosa to vada your dolly old eek”
Chuck