My Prime Ministers and I

Stephen Maybery

Description

Set at the time of the Golden Jubilee, My Prime Ministers and I is exactly what satire is supposed to be, a ruthless and hilarious lampoon of Tony Blair and England's Political class. Tired of being continuously undermined by her supposedly loyal Ministers, Queen Elizabeth abdicates, as do her immediate successors. The Ministers are delighted as they are now able to act as if they were royalty without the embarrassment of being measured against the real thing. But things do not work out quite as the politicians anticipated. The Queen now lives in Canada, from where she subtly plots against the British Government, and if that were not bad enough for the Administration in London, the populace of Great Britain had the impertinence to start voicing their opinions on the direction events were taking - a development not necessarily to the taste of the ruling elite, who viewed such manifestations of democratic opinion to be nothing short of seditious... giving the lower orders the vote was one thing but actually listening to them was out of the question, and, unfortunately, that is the sort of logic which can start a revolution. Dividing her time between Canada and Virginia, Elizabeth II orchestrates the situation much as a conductor would a Mozart symphony. The London politicians may have possessed the power, but what chance would they stand against a woman through whose veins ran a thousand years of skulduggery?

Sujets

• Humour

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 19 août 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781849891882
• Langue: English

Extrait

Title Page

MY PRIME MINISTERS AND I


By

Stephen Maybery
Publisher Information

My Prime Ministers and I
Published in 2010 by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

The characters and situations in this book are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening.

Copyright © Stephen Maybery

The right of Stephen Maybery
to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.




Chapter 1

It was one of those days, God knows we each of us get them from time to time, when absobloodylutely nothing goes right and sods law swings into action with a vengeance; the heavens do not open, nor is the glory of God declared to all and sundry. In short it was the sort of day that causes a body to opine that if this be an example of the Deity’s sense of humour, then the old bastard should keep it to himself and leave he rest of us to get on with our lives as best we can.
There was nothing whatsoever to distinguish this particular day from any other. To no one’s particular surprise, the sun had risen as per the popular expectation, and by eight of the clock the streets of London town were already snarled up by traffic, but this day was different, although there was nobody in the land who could have testified to the fact. If Queen Elizabeth II had reigned in her wilder impulses and confined her breakfast reading on that morning to the Sporting Life, then the history of these islands would have been very different, but she had not. For some unfathomable reason the Queen had ordered a copy of the Daily Truth
The Daily Truth was noted for several things, journalistic integrity not being amongst them, not for nothing had the rag been dubbed a skid mark on the underwear of British journalism. Why on this, or any other day, H.M would have chosen to read the damn rag was beyond the comprehension of mortal man, but she had done so, with consequences that could never have been guessed at this side of the Pearly Gates.
The Queen’s mood was not of the best at that particular moment, nor had it been for some time past. The Jubilee had been and gone, a monument to the organizational abilities of the Government, in short the entire jamboree had gone off like a dispso’s dick in a brothel, that is they were perfectly aware of what it was that was required of it but were physically incapable of rising to the occasion. The truth of the matter was that they had no interest in making the celebrations a success. The entire Government was against the monarchy and did not take too much trouble to disguise the fact, all that stood between them and declaring a republic was a vague feeling in their intellectual bones, that the great British public, God rot the fascist bastards, might not go along with the scheme, which of course they would not. The public in their wisdom, considered it was bad enough to have to have to pay for the politicians in the first place, without having to bow and scrape to the sons of bitches, which is what would happen if they took over from royalty.
None of this had brought into play a sweetening of the royal mood over the past year, and even if the jubilee celebrations had been better organized, there were other factors, which would have curdled the milk in the royal cornflakes. The press in general and the Daily Truth in particular continued to snipe at every royal peccadillo, real or imagined; and the B.B.C, po faced and sanctimonious as only that organization can be, made it a condition of promotion that the monarch be belittled by its employees at every opportunity. No wonder Her Majesty was a tad pissed off.
Prince Phillip entered the breakfast room just as that morning’s edition of the Truth went in to orbit over the table, missing the corgis, before scoring a bull’s eye on one of Queen Victoria’s less than distinguished daubs. This rather flatulent projectile was closely followed in its defiance of gravity by the tea pot. Fortunately this example of the potter’s art was not one of the more valuable items from the royal collection. The teapot missed the painting but fragmented on making contact with a credenza parked next to the fireplace.
“Offended by the cartoon were we?” enquired the royal consort, not even trying to avoid the appearance of being facetious.
“I’ve had it” spat out his better half, while at the same time bringing a silver teaspoon down on a boiled egg with a force sufficient to make the offering inedible in the form originally intended. “I’ve bloody well had it.”
“So has the teapot. You’d better ring for another one. I’m gasping. Oh, and do try not to chuck the next one up against the bloody wall, we’re not made of money y’know, despite what the Truth says.”
“I don’t want that damn rag mentioned in my presence again.” Her Majesty had commanded. However not even Her Majesty could expect to be obeyed implicitly at eight fifteen in the morning by a spouse of fifty plus years duration, dressed in nothing more prepossessing than a Marks and Sparks dressing gown which had seen better days.
“All right. All right. Keep your crown on.” He plonked himself down at the table, snatching as he did so a slice of toast of imposible daintiness.
.”If we are fated to start this day with a first class bitching session, can I ask, for the umpteenth bloody time, why in the name of almighty God and the choir of queens why we can’t have toast served in respectable sized slices and not these pansy shaped bits that would embarrass a man to be seen holding in his fist?”
“The chefs think their professional standing would be damaged if they did not tart everything up for the royal table. I’m reliably informed by someone who knows about these things that I have never seen a natural looking spud on my plate in my entire life. Perhaps he was right, how the hell am I to know?”
“I still can’t see why we find it so impossible to get a decent piece of toast on the plate. But that doesn’t answer why you were reading the Truth. As far as I know you have never glanced at it in your entire life. Why now?”
“Something a little bird told me.”
“Judging by your reaction it was not so much as a little bird as a shite hawk.” Even at this early hour, the Prince had not forgotten to put his habitual delicacy of phrase in with his teeth.
“Come on, let’s have it I don’t want to have to read the damn rag myself.”
“It was another of those ruddy pieces claiming to know what I am thinking before I have even had chance to think the thoughts myself.”
“So. What’s the problem? That is hardly pioneering a new avenue in journalism.”
“Arabella Clackmannon, she’s the bloody problem. The cow.” Most folk, securely swathed in the incontinence pads of naivety would be terribly shocked at majesty using so intemperate a phrase; however, Prince Phillip, after fifty odd years with his trouble and strife recognized she was being frightfully restrained, which in itself was a danger signal to be accorded due respect.
“Might one enquire who exactly is this Arabella whatsit?”
“Clackmannon, Lady Arabella to be exact. The bitch.”
“I’m still no wiser, but for the sake of the succession if not your blood pressure, start at the beginning and explain all, in words of Anglo Saxon simplicity. And where’s that bloody tea?” H.M. picked up the phone and made a crisp enquiry that had the
recipient of the call fearing for his pension, while all the time
thanking whatever gods there may be, that the chopping off of heads had gone out of fashion for the time being.
“Arabella Clackrnannon is a distant cousin of mine.”
“Well I’ve never heard of her, let alone met the woman.”
“She’s very distant. On Mummy’s side.”
“Oh. One of that lot, no wonder. I wouldn’t put anything past that crew, but how come I’ve never met her?”
“Well, as I said she is very distant, almost an antipodean in genealogical terms, you’d literally have to dig to find the connection, and when you got there, there would not be much to examine. I last met her about sixty-five years ago, Margo and I were in the Brownies, she was brought to the palace to meet us for some
reason. We neither of us liked her and she was never invited again. That was that, I never saw nor heard her again until I read that bloody rag this morning.”
“I still do not see why you bothered with it. The woman can hardly have said anything that has not appeared in Woman’s Own over the years, which is where she probably got hold of her info.”
“Sir Ralph thought I should see it, he’d been tipped off by a friend in the Truth’s office.”
“Sir Ralph!” The Prince looked as if he had been stabbed in the backside with a hypodermic charged with divine revelation; his questions had just been answered. “That flaming great pansy. Probably the wrong time of the month.” The Queen winced visibly, the lady could not by any stretch of the imagination be described as politically correct, but she did wish her spouse would be a little more understanding of the help; they were getting harder and harder both to find and to keep these days, especially with the wages she paid, which owed a lot to the age of Dickens, and buggerall to the current cost of living. “Just shrug it off like you always do. It’s not worth the aggravation.”
“I know, but this time it has well and truly got to me. Believe it or not I have just about had a belly full, no, n