The Day We Went To Vote

Election Day 1997

This was a bad day for the people — the government got back in. John Tweedledum resigned and Tony Tweedledee got to bow his knee to Queenie. His first Cabinet had no surprises; Harriet Harman was appointed Mistress of Public Morals, declaring the nation’s motto for the next five years would be ‘do as we say, not as we do’. Jack Straw got to be No-Home Secretary and announced that street people would be tagged and stuck in one Howard’s Houses, as the cosy prisons, sorry involuntary hostels, run by Group 4 were now known. Things got worse...

October 1997

Rather than read the Queen’s Speech, Brenda resigned and Charles III crowned by Shree Bhagwan Rajneesh, four ex-Bishops and their husbands, newly converted to the Church of Tony. John Prescott shot himself rather than be ousted as a closet socialist by Young Christians for Labour, an accusation proved false when it was conclusively shown that he was just a fat Northern.

January 1998

The Tories split after the Conference from Hell. Clarke and Hezzer formed a ‘Get Rich over There Party’ and moved to Tuscany to become MP’s. Howard, Portillo and Lilley formed ‘Break ‘Em, Block ‘Em and Flog ‘Em’, a party to deal once and for all with the unemployed, asylum-seekers and trouble makers. Tweedledum led the rump into alliance with Ulster’s Unionist who immediately annexed Dundee and the Docklands to put them under protective rule before the IRA arrived.

April 1998

First challenge for the Government was putting the economy right. To stimulate demand everyone was required to shop ‘One More Day for Britain’, and what they purchased fed into a computer in Staines. Anyone spending less than £50 was declared fiscally immoral and made to take consumer classes at their local Sainsburys (which had won the contract to deliver education). Children in orphanages were given classes in how to sell themselves and many got work; the lucky ones went to Hampstead where servants were hired, those with unfortunate accents got to sell themselves outside Kings Cross...

May 1999

May Day was replaced by Stakeholder Day. All citizens were given shares in newly privatised schools, a shareout of newly created wealth made possible by banning strikes and introducing ‘Workflex’, a new system of employment that let people work whenever they were lucky enough to find a job and a master hiring. The first deportation for tampering with the Idchip under everyone’s skin took place, the unfortunate non-European citizen being sent to Asia South.

September 1999

The Church received a big payout from the CIA for bringing down communism and bought the NHS, creating work for thousands of nuns recalled from famine work in Africa, now so well run by CDC (Christ doesn’t Care).

March 2001

Unemployment reached zero, as New Labour had promised, since by now everyone worked or was digging ditches somewhere. No one was counting anyway. The last New Age Traveller was rounded up and forced into a uniform. She was given a job collecting toils on the ten lane access road to the new terminal at Heathrow airport, built by Project Work battalions from the Government’s last big push against scroungers. Ross Perot was sworn in as President of America, then married Hillary Clinton after she divorced Bill. Power became the great aphrodisiac of the 21^st Century and was bottled by Chanel.

Easter 2001

After a long-time of public service, Cardinal Blair resigned and was replaced by blessed Harriet, after Robin Cook was discovered in bed with Gillian Shepherd, the Archbishop of Canterbury. In a snap election, New Con, European division of Murdoch’s News Corporation, was elected. It pledged everything would be different — but the same. No one noticed since the country was being run by a satellite beaming instructions from Newcorp HQ in America anyway.

October 2001

Peter Mandelson ran the campaign that got Tony Blair elected Pope. The Taliban in Paris issued a fatwah and British beef was banned again, along with Britain itself. Premier Tung was assassinated visiting an auto plant in Japan, as the forcibly unified Korea was now called, and China declared war. The Moral Militia joined in and launched the last of America’s ICBMs in the ‘Biggest Shoot Out Since the Last One’, as it was to become known. Production (for the rich) and consumption (by the rich) were now so perfectly in harmony that poor people weren’t needed and just caused unnecessary guilt. The rest is history...