Trust in the Tinkerer of the Exchequer
IT WAS a motley crew of beneficiaries the Tinkerer of the Exchequer ushered into the first class cabins of HMS Treasury yesterday.
Satellites, waste facilities, broadband networks, supercomputers, world-bleating (beating?) animal health labs, the Kettering Bypass, small shops, the A453 link…
“They’re all going to be improved!” the Tinkerer brayed, as he furiously rearranged the deckchairs for the benefit of his new favourites.
But what about the throngs of standard-class passengers? The ones travelling deep down in the keel of the ship, close enough to see the waves rising as the storm builds across the Channel. Little joy for them.
“We are doing what we can,” the Tinkerer crooned, vowing to protect the dark satanic steel mills of the North.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds was having none of it. “A hideous act of hypocrisy,” they squawked as the Tinkerer promised to consider a brand new airport in the Thames Estuary.
The school children in the Commons public gallery had had enough: they know, after all, that moving beads back and forth across an abacus does not create more of them.
Taking a cue from Bob Crow, they staged a futile walk-out half way through Osborne’s statement.
The Tinkerer was unfazed: he will lead Britain to safety, he declared, guiding us through the storms, floods, tidal waves of euro debt. Showing the will to live, to lead. Acting, matching, saving, lasting, gerund-ing for tough times.
And as we emerge from the storm, ready to drop anchor on the shores of our safe haven… the dove bearing its olive leaf is nowhere to be seen.
It has been swallowed up by a jet engine somewhere over the Thames Estuary.