Cabinet meeting, July 2008
If you don't mind me saying so PM this
is an awfully small cabinet meeting. There's only the two of
us here.
Look Alistair, you're lucky I decided
to invite you. I always say if you want anything done properly
do it yourself.
Drat these statistics Alistair…
drat and double drat… I thought we'd got those wallahs in
the Office of National Statistics under our thumb, re-inventing
the figures to always put us in a good light.
Instead we've got this dratted NHS figure about the effects of
alcohol on the size of the bill.
Well PM, they did what we wanted and pushed everything remotely
connected with the demon drink into one figure and now that's
top of the list we really have to show that we're sorting it
out.
Why is it Alistair that everyone in this godforsaken Sassenach
country is always drunk?
I'll look into it straight away PM and let you know later this
morning…
Later this morning at a re-convened
Cabinet meeting..
It's like this PM…
Remember when you were in my job and
you wanted to save lots of lovely lolly from which we could claim
our expenses without anyone knowing just how much we were entitled
to?
Go on Alistair.. my mind is blank…
Remember those Magistrate pillocks that were always whining about
their pay?
Just about Alistair… it's starting to come back to me…
You said you'd lighten their load by
taking the job of issuing pub and club drinking licenses off
them. That way they'd be able to work a 3 day week like us…
you said…
Well we did that, late one night when
no-one in the house was really aware what we were up to…
Yes Alistair go on… I remember
getting into a bit of a muddle afterwards..
Well PM we gave the job of issuing the
licenses to Local Authorities as a sort of sideline and the rotten
so and so's turned on us and demanded they charge £2,500
for each license instead of the £25 charged by the Magistrates.
Then you said the pubs and clubs could
pay the extra from their massive profits.
There was a sort of uprising and in
the end you said they should sell more beer and stuff…
They said they couldn't because they
weren't allowed to stay open long enough and you then said they
could stay open all day and all night if they wanted to and the
extra profits from the extra beer and stuff would pay for the
new licenses.
Sound idea Alistair. One of my lateral
thoughts coming into play I think…
Well PM the problem now is that drink
related NHS admissions has rocketed and someone may work out
the link and blame us…
What do you suggest Alistair…?
Well, we could fix the phoney NHS statistic
or we could tell these pubs and clubs to open at sensible times…
or maybe just tell them to stop selling too much beer…
Let me know what to do Alistair old
chap maybe later this afternoon…?
Something like doubling the price of
beer. That way we'd get twice the duty and the pub landlords
would get oodles more money and be able to close early.
What a wizard idea PM. You always seem
to know exactly what to do… Leave it to me.
