Department of Shirk and Truncheons

Scene: Secretary of State’s office - Department for the Elimination of Idle Deadweight’s (D.E.I.D.)

Sir Michael Underpants Fucking-Bastard described his clientele as ‘unworthy of oxygen’ and ‘pig-like’. When asked if he was referring to genuinely disabled people who couldn’t work he proclaimed ‘there are farmers in need of scare-crows, rugger teams in need of tackle practice’

Sir Michael had been appointed due to his utter incompetence to a department where utter incompetence was a winning virtue. The more he messed things up the better for everyone except those which it was meant to serve. Failed computer systems, unfair sanctions, ‘fit for work’ quota’s, forty-five expensive minutes to get through on the phone – it was all grist to the mill of a government utterly Malthusian in its intent.

An heir to the giant Barclay’s fortune (and married to a Rothschild) he had as much clue as to the plight of those on whose behalf he was meant to serve as he did about performing intricate eye surgery. A life of luxury and privilege had been his to enjoy from birth and, certainly in the UK, and within his own constituency of Henley-On-The-Wealth, had never visited even the proximity where lived anyone remotely likely to claim a benefit or a state allowance (although he’d heard tell of a distant cousin who’d had to sell the family Bentley during the crash of ’92. This, he’d thought at the time, must be what they mean by ‘poverty’).

Sir Michael had no love of humanity certainly outside of his own social circle and class and, even then, did not mind one bit hearing of the troubles of a friend or family member, though would never dream of admitting as much. Mendacious, sneaky and manipulative were the three adjectives that best described the character of Sir Michael with perhaps ‘extreme sexual deviancy’ thrown in for the fuller picture. 

Anyone stupid enough not to be rich and pampered was ill-deserving of his attention and certainly, his respect. He imagined such people in Dickensian terms as dressed in rags and living in voluntary squalor somewhere to the east of the City of London or, more generally, in the northern outlands or ‘Scotland’ as he imagined it generically named (even to this day. he referred to the film Brigadoon as ‘an excellent documentary’).

The idea that such people should be ‘given money’ was to his mind utterly appalling and so he viewed his new post in terms of preventing this abomination and putting the money firmly back in the taxpayer’s pocket. These thoughts, if only he’d been wise enough to understand, were the perfect distillation of his party’s manifesto.

Always elegant in expensive dark-blue suit, Sir Michael cut a dashing figure. Sleek dark hair, corn-fed cheeks and a trim body hardened by a decade of kick-boxing, he looked every inch the businessman-politician. He had a signed photo of Margaret Thatcher on his new desk, a memento procured by his father, Sir Hector Albatross Plum-Duff Fucking- Bastard, who had served as Minister for Torture in the Iron Lady’s last administration. 

Sir Hector, now retired, spent his time on his massive Argyllshire estate murdering servants and mounting their severed heads in the baronial hall. Only last year, he’d stabbed his wife by mistake as she’d been picking strawberries in the vast garden. He said to his son later over dinner at The Savoy that, from behind, she’d looked like that ‘ghastly Clare Short’ and he’d run her through with a hunting knife. Her torso now took pride of place on the wall above the fire-place.