Current British Chancellor Alastair Darling has reverted to the original box first used by Gladstone in 1860.
Despite his trials at the ministry Perkins has been promoted!! Now he’s PA to the Chancellor, Gordon Brown. It’s now a few weeks before Budget day in 2005 …
“Perkins – the old red box looks a bit battered.”
“Well, it is 150 years old, Sir. It’s a sort of quaint British tradition.”
“Perhaps, but it’s not up to my modern, dynamic, ‘look to the future’ image. Please arrange to get some new ones made.”
“‘Some’, Sir? It’s only used once a year for a couple of hours.”
“Even so Perkins. We need a couple of spares and I must look the part. Besides, it’s a good opportunity to renew all the boxes used by other ministers. We should get a discount for quantity ….. Is there a problem?”
“Well Sir, the boxes are specially made, with lead and stuff so that if you are at sea and someone tries to get it you can chuck it overboard and it’ll sink.”
“Oh really Perkins! When am I going to be at sea with my budget?”
“No comment, Sir …”
“But we must move with the times, Perkins. What will this all cost?”
“About £400 a box, Sir – and about £60,000 to renew the lot!”
“Well there you go. A bargain.”
“But £60,000, Sir. We are already billions in debt!!
“Exactly. Compared to our existing debt £60,000 is a microscopic fleabite. See to it at once Perkins.”
“Of course, Sir. But are you sure? I could get you something reasonable from Woolies for £25.”
“Woolies, Perkins? What would people think?”
“Well, they might think you were trying to be frugal, Sir!”
Frugal? Frugal? What exactly is that, Perkins? Never come across it before.
Nonsense, Sir? Then why are the police involved again?
Again?
Yes, Sir. They’re also investigating the mysterious unthinking think-tank remember?
Oh yes, I’d forgotten that.
There’s a rumour going round the canteen that the police are going to set up an incident room on the terrace of the House of Commons, Sir.
On the terrace?
Yes Sir. The idea is to save time going to and fro’ the house; deal with the criminals, sorry MPs, in batches – benefit from economies of scale sort of thing ….
Perkins! That’s the kind of silly rumour started by malicious gossips. I’m surprised you even listen to such tittle-tattle.
But you must admit it’s a rum do, Sir – using public money to finance his son’s university education!
But Perkins, it was only his expenses that he used!
That money is supposed to be used – if I may say so – for expenses, Sir.
But those WERE expenses, Perkins! Goodness, you are being obtuse, today. When your son goes to university you certainly have expenses, I can tell you!
I meant his parliamentary expenses, Sir.
Oh really, Perkins. If we’re going to start nit-picking over every pound in every expense account in the House of Commons then where will we be?
I don’t know where we’ll be, Sir, but I know where the police will be and where half of our illustrious MPs will end up ……..
But Perkins, we’re talking about money already earmarked for expenses. Once it’s allocated then it doesn’t really exist any more; it’s virtually spent!
Well, it seems this money was actually spent, Sir – and after all, it was public money, Sir!
Public money? What on earth are you talking about, Perkins! It was the government’s money!
But it came from the public, Sir!
Aha! Got you there, Perkins. Granted it WAS the public’s money originally but once it left their bank accounts it became Government money! Surely you can see the distinction?
Now come on Perkins. You know that these things happen down there in the underclass.
But this is more than the usual knocking-about of wives and kids that goes on Sir.
But it doesn’t do to over-sentimentalize things, Perkins.
I’m sorry, Sir, but do you actually know the details?
Details? Good God, man! I’m far too preoccupied with the broad sweep of politics to worry about details!
But it seems this tyrannical father actually starved several of his kids to death …
Goodness me, and there were we thinking New Labour had abolished poverty.
And there were apparently three other kids locked up in perpetuity; one of them subjected to horrendous torture ….
Locked up? What had they done?
They apparently answered back, Sir?
Answered back?
Yes, Sir …. and there’s more ….
There usually is with you Perkins.
Those who weren’t starved to death or locked up were subjected to a life of deprivation, misinformation and misery, Sir.
You mean they were British voters? (just a joke, Perkins …)
It’s not a laughing matter Sir. They had no access to proper food or health provision.
Sounds pretty normal for the mob to me, Perkins …
And then they were brainwashed; they could only see and hear what their father wanted them to see … they have no idea what is going on in the outside world, Sir ….
But the mob have always lived like that, Perkins – they do read “The Daily Mail” after all …
But you haven’t heard the worst, Sir!
Oh dear …
Last week two of the kids ran away. They managed to climb across the fence into the grounds of a major company on a neighbouring industrial estate. But a guardcaught them and took them back to the tyrannical father, even though they were crying, emaciated and showed signs of malnutrition and harsh punishment ….
Goodness Perkins …. this does sound bad.
I’ve been investigating, Sir, and it seems that it is this has happened before and it is company’s policy to hand the kids back instead of trying to help them.
Well, one can’t interfere in private family matters, Perkins …. come on, let’s have a cup of tea and get on with the preparations for the election …
But I found out more, Sir …
Oh Dear, Perkins …. all right, tell me the worst!
Well Sir, it was all very well concealed, but I discovered that this large company that handed back the cruelly-treated children is the government’s largest supplier of cheap, rubbishy goods ……
Perkins! For goodness sake! They are NOT cheap and rubbishy … cheap perhaps …
So you KNOW about this company, Sir?
Of course Perkins …. as you said, they are our main supplier.
But they connive with child abuse, Sir …
Look Perkins, if we were to have a crisis of conscience over every single case of abuse we’d hardly be able to import anything, except from Canada, Switzerland, Germany and Sweden, and have you seen their prices?
But it’s not moral, Sir …
We try to avoid using this word in politics, Perkins. We would be on a sticky wicket on thin ice if we didn’t ….
But back in 1994 Robin Cook said that the new Labour Government would have an ethical policy on abuse …
Perkins, let me explain the difference between heady, overblown, post-election rhetoric and the real world of pragmatism … besides, Robin Cook died …..
So our pragmatism outweighs our morality?
Well, doing it the other way would only mean shooting ourselves in the wallet, Perkins ….
But it’s very sad, Sir!
Indeed, Perkins, but not for us, and that’s the main thing after all …. come on – put the kettle on ….
[For Gulagova family read North Korea; for large trading company read China, Ed.]
Our doughty mole has unearthed more secret transcriptions from the Ministry ….
The Ministry
Hello Perkins! Let’s get to it!
Get to what, Sir?
Perkins – there’s a mini-crisis …..
There usually is, Sir …..
We have a stark, difficult choice ahead of us.
Oh, Dear, Sir – not again.
Yes, Perkins. I know that choice is not something we prefer to face, but there it is.
But why has it come to this, Sir?
Cuts, Perkins – The IMF are about to be called in so the PM – I mean the Chancellor – has been forced to make some cuts.
Oh Dear, Sir. But how does this affect us?
Well, you know those consultants that were called in?
You mean those on £100,000 a day plus bonus, Sir?
Yes, that’s them! By Jove don’t you admire this dynamic synergy between public and private, Perkins!!
Well ….
Anyway, after weeks of in-depth research they’ve narrowed it down for us to a clear choice, which certainly saves us some head-banging, I must say.
And this choice is ……?
Well, we either buy more flak jackets for the men on front-line duty in Iraq or we pay the MOD mandarins a bonus.
“Daily Mail”! What on earth are you doing with that?
Well, I thought I’d check it out, Sir.
Check it out?
Yes Sir. People have been attacking it.
Attacking it?
You keep repeating me, Sir …
I’m just stunned Perkins! Why on earth would anyone sane want to “check it out”?
Well, I’ve always been suspicious of situations where the establishment and so-called cognoscenti collectively attack something, Sir.
Why on earth is that, Perkins?
Well, they could have an ulterior motive, Sir.
Ulterior motive?”
You’re doing it again, Sir.
Look Perkins, the Mail is a ghastly, sensationalist rag.
When did you last read it, Sir?
Goodness me, Perkins. I have better things to do with my time.
How can you be sure then that you’re not just baying the mindless mantra of your peers?
Look Perkins. I don’t read the Mail because it appeals to the mob and has no analysis.
But “the mob” are the mass of the people, Sir.
Exactly, Perkins. Now you’re on the right track.
So you don’t believe in democracy, Sir?
Don’t ask silly questions, Perkins. Of course I do, just as long as the people don’t get their hands on government. But seriously, the Mail has little analysis; just a crude statement of facts.
But why are you so attached to “analysis”, Sir? Surely it’s the facts that are most important?
Well if you don’t have analysis then how do you know what’s really going on? You need analysis to explain the headlines.
But surely any analysis depends on the spin of the author? Why can’t people be given the facts and allowed to make up their own minds?
“Make up their own minds?” Be serious, Perkins. The mob hasn’t got a mind to make up; that’s why it’s called “the mob”.
I think you’ll find it was the mob that fought and died in two World Wars to protect freedom and democracy in Britain, Sir.
Aha! That proves my point! You don’t need to understand much to pop your head over the top and get it shot off, do you! The mob is ideally suited to it.
But “analysis” is overrated, Sir. People should be encouraged to think for themselves.
“Think for themselves!” Now Perkins, those who went to public school can be expected to think for themselves, but as for the rest …
I’m sorry, Sir; there is in fact too much analysis. I was put off at school at an early age. No sooner had we opened a Shakespeare play than we had FR Leavis shoved down our throats telling us what to think about it rather than being allowed to interpret and analyze it ourselves.
I’m sorry your education seems to have gone so seriously wrong, Perkins. Did you in fact go to a public school?
Only a poor man’s one, Sir …. but analysis in the press just seems to me a clever way of trying to tell people what they should think. I believe Goebbels was very good at analysis, and of course Tony Blair …
Now Perkins, analysis is all that differentiates us from unthinking morons who cannot understand the law.
You mean British MPs and their expense accounts, Sir?
No … errm …. perhaps I should rephrase that … but really Perkins, this “Defend the Mail” crusade is really a bit OTT, isn’t it?
Perhaps, Sir, but it’s because it is so heavily attacked by verbal diarrhoearists who support totalitarianism. My principle is that your enemy’s enemy is your friend, so to speak. If someone who supports dictatorship attacks it at every chance then it can’t be all bad, sort of thing.
I’m sorry, Perkins. I don’t think I will ever be able to follow the tortured meanderings of your mind.
I think that’s because deep down I identify with “the mob”, Sir, or as I prefer to call them; “the people” ……..
Hmm …… if I were you Perkins I wouldn’t go trumpeting that too loudly round Whitehall. It could put an end to a promising career.
Transcripts from our bug in the Ministry of Misinformation, Whitehall, London
Good morning, Perkins ….
If you say so, Sir
Oh Dear …. I can tell there’s something wrong, Perkins … you’d better get it off your chest.
It’s this Tibet business, Sir, …
Tibet! Goodness me, Perkins! You do worry about such small things!
I wouldn’t exactly call Tibet, small, Sir.
But it’s thousands of miles away, Perkins, in a country of which we know little, and the British people even less.
Perhaps, but no man is an island and all that …
Perkins, we do have work to do, you know!
But nobody takes the Tibetans’ rights, seriously, Sir.
Well, it depends what you mean by “seriously”, Perkins.
But they are an occupied people! The Chinese Han are ethnically-swamping them! If the Americans did that to the Canadians, for example, there’d be all hell let loose …
Oh come, come, Perkins! You can’t compare Canadians to Tibetans! The latter are an underdeveloped, uncivilized race! The Chinese are bringing them into the modern world. They’re investing billions in the country.
Yes, to turn Tibet into a part of China, with Han culture …
But it is part of China, Perkins.
Only because the Chinese seized it by force. What right do they actually have to rule Tibet? Until they started moving millions of Chinese into the country there were practically no Chinese there at all. It was a thousand-year-old and totally different – and to the Chinese Han – alien culture.
What right, Perkins? Well, I’m sorry to disillusion you, but their bigger army gave them the right and after all, possession is nine-tenths of the law!
But they are so arrogant. And so-called democracies don’t say a word. India has even banned a march by a few hundred exiled Tibetans. The west continues to trade with and enrich China so that it can buy arms to oppress its minorities. It’s sickening, Sir.
Only if you have a conscience, Perkins. I’m sorry to see you are still afflicted by conscience.
I don’t think you are taking this seriously, Sir.
I am, Perkins; it’s just that nothing can be done.
You mean, nothing that doesn’t hurt us a bit, don’t you Sir?
Well, that goes without saying, Perkins! Do you really think the British consumer is going to accept to have to pay more for his DVD-recorder just to put a bit of pressure on China!!!
I’m sorry, Sir. It stinks. China supports North Korea, and they’ve just executed 15 people just for trying to flee the country. When North Koreans do get out of the hell of their regime, the Chinese often send them back. And yet we allow them to hold the Olympic Games! To set doves free in a gesture of peace! It is horrible, Sir.
Yes, Perkins. It’s called politics.
But it is preposterously hypocritical, Sir. Have you read “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights”?
Not recently, Perkins …
Well, what about this bit in Article 21?
The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.
Well, what about it, Perkins?
Well, members of the UN are supposed to subscribe to that, aren’t they, Sir? But a majority don’t, do they? China certainly doesn’t, does it?
I’m not sure I can answer three questions at once, Perkins. But I’ll give it some thought over the weekend …….
And what are you doing over the weekend, Sir?
As it happens, Perkins, I’m playing golf with the Chinese Ambassador …..
Transcripts from our bug in the Ministry of Misinformation, Whitehall, London
Sir: Morning, Perkins. You look a bit perturbed this morning …
Perkins: Good morning, Sir …. well, it’s the economic news …
Oh come on Perkins … swings and roundabouts, economic cycles, what goes around comes around and all that.
Yes, but it seems we’re in the longest recession since records began.
Records, Perkins? Well, of course they’re there to be broken, and if anyone can do it, the Labour Government certainly can! Come on, cheer up – it’s just a spot of fiscal turbulence … in six months we’ll be wondering what all the fuss was about ….
Six months?
Well, nine months then … the PM has promised an end to the recession in 2010.
Some are saying that government promises about the economy aren’t worth the paper they’re written on …
Well, he only said it, Perkins. I don’t think he actually wrote it down as evidence, so to speak.
But he also said: “Britain is better placed than other European countries to weather the recession”, and now look at France and Germany! My old schoolmate Snuggs down in Southern Germany says there is no sign of a recession – boarded-up and charity shops are as rare as unicorns, BMWs, Mercedes and Audis whiz back and fro’ to Munich – not an old banger is to be seen, immaculate countryside …. the only black spot is farmers whingeing about the low price of milk, but then they’re always whingeing about something.
Perkins, I’ve told you before, that’s Germany … you can’t apply the same standards of comparison to Britain …. as for posh cars, well, they make them don’t they? They probably have a surplus and so are flogging them off cheap.
But what about the sinking pound, Sir? It’s now just hovering around parity with the euro – a year ago it was well above it. It’s very worrying …
Perkins …. I believe you’ve never studied economics, have you? that’s just the way it is. The German currency always goes up relative to the pound. I remember when I was at school it was 11DM to the pound.
But it’s not the German currency, Sir, it’s the euro.
Don’t be silly, Perkins. The euro is 90% the Deutschmark in reality. But I wouldn’t worry about the falling pound: it’s great for our exports. Besides, it hasn’t fallen relative to people in Britain. The pound in your pocket has maintained its value. Old Harold Wilson had a good understanding of relativity …. our whole approach is based on the principles of Einstein himself.
But won’t commodities rise, Sir? After all, we depend on imports for practically everything.
Aha! But that’s good for restraining consumption … we must consume less, Perkins, if we are to save the planet.
But the PM is banking on increased growth to save the economy, so how can we have increased growth and lower consumption, Sir? I don’t understand!
As I said before, Perkins, you’re not an economist – or a politician, come to that …..
But they’re saying that we are borrowing billions just to cover current expenditure rather than spending it on long-term infrastructure projects.
Ah … now you’re getting a bit technical, Perkins … you really must avoid jargon … after all, this is the Ministry of Misinformation ….
Jargon? What about “quantitative easing”? Isn’t that just jargon for “borrowing even more humungous amounts of money we haven’t got?”
Perkins – you’re getting confused; obviously we haven’t got it if we have to borrow it …. besides, “quantitative easing” is nothing like borrowing as you describe it.
Why not, Sir? I don’t understand.
It’s completely and utterly different, Perkins. It has a different name for a start.
Well, I can’t help being worried, Sir.
Enough of this nonsense, Perkins. The economy is booming … have you been to Harrods lately? Absolutely packed ….
Yes Sir, with Arabs and Russian oligarchs ….
Well, look on the bright side, Perkins, at least they’re spending their money over here rather than in their own countries ….. besides, where would the Premiership be without their money? …. come on, Perkins – let’s have a cup of tea and forget about all this economic nonsense … we have some misinformation to sort out …
A tongue-in-cheek reflection on the absurdities of British Goverment.
In 1980 the BBC first broadcast a satirical situation comedy called Yes Minister. It was hugely popular. It attempted to illustrate through (slight!) exaggeration the arcane world of ministerial life and how the British Civil Service Mandarins, in the end, were the ones truly in charge of Her Majesty’s Government. Here’s a taste of the programme:
Almost difficult to believe that that was broadcast nearly 30 years ago – could have been yesterday! Here’s another clip:
Nothing much has changed since then … indeed, real as opposed to illusory change is something that the Civil Service strives constantly to avoid. For the information and instruction of a new generation of voters, our devious and doughty correspondent has managed to engage the services of a modern “Deep Throat” who has furnished us with transcripts of current conversations from one of the Ministries. To protect the identity of the individuals involved, we have renamed the former the Ministry of Misinformation, since – obviously – this could be any one of the multiple current ministries.
We intend to reveal further on-going communications in the fullness of time, hoping as always that the identity of “Deep Throat II” will not be revealed though the launch of a leak enquiry. We are fairly optimistic about this since leak enquiries have never provided any results in the past.
The first ‘communication’ is tomorrow at 16:00 GMT.
Learning from Dogs 