“I’m sorry sir,” said Tweedles. He looked exhausted, sitting shrunken at the end of the enormous table in the cabinet office. His permanently eager expression was replaced by a baffled gloom. “I’ve done all I can to sell the concept of the Super Society. But no-one’s buying”.
Stanford-Smythe, the Prime Minister, was staring at his hands. The air of defeat hung around his shoulders like a shroud. He was sitting in his usual chair facing the window, in the centre of the table, with his secretary Cossington by his side. Over the past few weeks he had dominated debates about the Super Society from this very chair while the rest of the cabinet had radiated unease and doubt. Stanford-Smythe had pushed his vision forward nonetheless - convinced that he was right, sure that the very weight of his certainty would be enough to bring them round. But it looked like the cabinet were right, and their absence from the room now seemed symbolic of his failure to bring the rest of the country with him.
“But it’s such a wonderful idea” he murmured. “We all know that what’s wrong with this country – no community spirit. People are turning to self-help books and lifestyle gurus in the thousands…”
“Well, in their tens, anyway” said Cossington, sympathetically.
“… and they’re all saying that something is missing from lives. I’m trying to give that back to them. Can’t they see? I’m trying to make them happy again.”
“And it’s a wonderful idea, Prime Minister” said Tweedles. “But the people don’t seem to understand your vision.”
“Is there any hope?” asked Stamford-Smythe. “Any chance that they might be prepared to try it out?”
Cossington coughed delicately and produced a tabloid paper from his briefcase, pushing it towards the prime minister. The front page was dominated by the headline “Bloody Scam!!!!!” and underneath it “We slave for nothing while the cabinet sprinkle our tax money on the floor of number 10 and rut in it like pigs!”
“Hmmmm” said the prime minister. “So that’s a ‘no’, then”.
“If only there was some way we could make them see” said Cossington. “If only we could force them to take part. Once they gave it a go and began to reap the benefits, they’d be converted.”
“Damn democracy” said Tweedles, bitterly.
“Well” said the Prime Minister, heaving a sigh. “If you’ll excuse me Tweedy, I have to get on with today’s box of papers. Thank you for all your efforts. I know you’ve done your best.”
“Not at all, Stampy,” said Tweedles, rising from the chair and starting to put on his jacket. For years he had insisted on dressing in Savile Row’s finest, but recently he had come to accept his fate and had taken to wearing only tweed. “Anything worrying in the box today?”
“Oh God,” groaned the Prime Minister, opening the box. “Not the pensions crisis again. I don’t think I can face it, Cossington. I might need a cup of my special coffee.”
Cossington nodded and tactfully withdrew.
“Is it bad?” asked Tweedles, sympathetically.
“The worst” said Stamford-Smythe, tapping his long elegant fingers on the polished surface of the table and glaring down at the paper in front of him in frustration. “No-one is saving for retirement, Tweedy. Don’t they understand that they have to do their bit? We can’t look after them with our tax revenues for ever!”
“Well,” said Tweedles “maybe they got caught up in the whole “you need to spend to keep the economy growing” argument. It can be hard to know what to do for the best sometimes. Maybe they thought the government wouldn’t tell them to spend and then abandon them to live with the consequences.”
Stamford-Smythe suddenly drew in a breath and stared, glassy-eyed at the window in front of him.
“Oh god” said Tweedles, hurrying over. “You’re having a heart attack. I’m sorry, I should never have questioned neo-liberal economics.”
“No no,” said Stamford-Smythe impatiently. “Tweedy, I’ve just had the most AMAZING idea!” He turned to Tweedles and grasped his lapels, eyes shining. “We can kill two birds with one stone!” he said, then hesitated. “Figuratively of course. No-one must know about the sale of hunting rights in our wildlife sanctuaries yet.”
“The secret is safe in my tweed knickers” said Tweedles, soothingly. It was an old joke from public school. “But what’s the amazing idea?”
“We have a country of sad, shallow good-for-nothings who don’t want to volunteer their time to help out with society, right?”
Tweedles nodded.
“And these good-for-nothings are going to sit on their knickers, tweed or otherwise, ailing slowly, drawing money from the state through pensions, the NHS, free bus passes and God knows what else, right?”
Tweedles nodded again. He had never seen the Prime Minister this excited. Or at least, not since the property crash of the early 90s, when he’d got out just in time and made a packet.
“Euthanasia!” sang the Prime Minister, getting up from his seat and leading Tweedles around the office in an impromptu waltz. Cossington, re-entering with the coffee, dropped the china cup on the expensive silk rug.
“What??” spluttered Tweedles.
“It’s perfect!” said the Prime Minister. “We start to kill off everyone who has proven to be no use to society at 65. But you can buy passes into old age with social credits, Tweedy. And you accrue those credits by doing things deemed to be socially useful, like volunteering for the Super Society! Or being Prime Minister! It’s brilliant!”
Tweedles swallowed. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
“And the passes don’t have to be permanent,” said the Prime Minister, releasing Tweedles and doing a light petit-jetes across the room in his excitement. “So if you have lots of credits you get a pass for 5 years, but you need to continue to volunteer during those 5 years in order to get an extension at the end! And the beauty of it is, everyone will want to continue volunteering their time, because they’ll have got so much satisfaction and community spirit out of doing it before. Brilliant, eh?”
Tweedles floundered.
“I think what Mr Tweedles is trying to say, sir” said Cossington, coming forward, “is that it might be a little difficult to sell to the party backers. A lot of them are already close to that age, you see. And they’re not all Prime Minister.”
Stamford-Smythe looked from one to the other, his smile fading. “But surely, they’ve all made lots of money for the country and paid lots of tax, so that would give them enough credits for free passes?”
“Ah” said Cossington, “on investigation of such a system, we might find that they haven’t all paid quite as much tax as they actually should have. There could be some quite unpleasant headlines around that. And maybe the country would want to … make an EXAMPLE of someone. None of the party backers are going to volunteer for that.”
“Well darn it all, Cossington” said Stamford-Smythe, frustrated. “There must be some way round this. It’s such a wonderful idea.”
Tweedles looked at Cossington in panic. He was fast approaching the wrong age himself.
“May I suggest, sir” said Cossington, smoothly, “that the passes would have great value to everyone in society. And we live in a free market economy.”
There was silence for a moment.
“You’re suggesting we allow the rich to buy passes?” asked Stamford-Smythe, frowning slightly. This wasn’t quite in line with his utopian vision.
“Well, sir” said Cossington, “putting the point about tax aside, the rich will have contributed to the economy through their buying power all their lives. That’s of social value too. This is just extending their ability to help the economy even further.”
Tweedles and his large Swiss bank account instantly saw the value of the Prime Minister’s proposition.
“I’m sure we can sell that to the party backers, sir” he said. “It’s a marvellous example of thinking outside the box for the good of the people.”
“Yes it is, rather, isn’t it?” said Stamford-Smythe, recovering a little of his former excitement. “Are there any other problems?”
“One last thing, sir” said Cossington. “We might struggle to get this through the European Court of Human Rights.”
“Oh, that pesky lot,” growled Stamford-Smythe, pacing in front of the marble fireplace.
“Never mind that,” said Tweedles, smoothly. “They’re putting pressure on us at the moment to allow prisoners the vote. Apparently we signed up to this when we signed the convention. Honestly, who didn’t read the small print?”
Cossington and Stamford-Smythe clucked in harmony.
“I suggest” said Tweedles, “that we take a stand. Insist that we won’t allow prisoners the right to vote. It’s against the morals of our COUNTRY, goddammit.”
“Hurray!” shouted Cossington, fired up with enthusiasm.
“Steady on with the language” said Stamford-Smythe, but he was entranced by Tweedles’ energy too.
Tweedles took a wide stance, hair flopping forward onto his forehead, and held them both with a smouldering eye. “We vote against,” he whispered. “And that will spell the beginning of the end for our involvement in the EU. We withdraw from the Convention on Human Rights, and we tell the country the euthanasia plan is to show Europe they can’t control our affairs. Once we say the Germans are against it we’ll be overwhelmed with popular support!”
“Tweedy” said the prime minister, affectionately, “what would I ever do without you?”
Tweedles nodded, modestly. Once again, he had helped Stampy save the country.
