“How are you getting on in there, lad?” comes the muffled voice of Prime Minister Andy Burnham.
“I’ve let Kevin at the Mirror know about the £100 off energy bills. The Sun got the fuel duty story. We just need accidentally to tell Pippa at the Guardian about gas bill standing charges, and I think we’re fully leaked,” shouts the chancellor, John Healey.
“Good work, cocker. I’m off to see a man about a pint of Boddingtons and a game of skittles. See you pitch-side.”
“You know, you could always phone each other,” suggests Emma Reynolds, chief secretary to the Treasury.
“We can’t get hacked this way,” Healey replies.
“Hollering through a wall? No, I guess not.”
“Don’t get cute. If my time at Defence taught me anything, it’s that the threats this country faces are constantly evolving.”
“What’s that smell?” asks Reynolds, alarmed.
Wes Streeting pops his well-scrubbed face around the door.
“Ambition,” says Healey.
“Yves Saint Laurent actually,” replies the defence secretary. He sips from a Palantir-branded water bottle.
“So, John Boy, have I got my 2.5 per cent?”
“Sorry, Wes. I had to weigh up all the hypothetical military threats we’re facing against all the school, housing and social care issues people are actually living with.”
The BAE Systems-branded stress ball in Streeting’s other hand bulges.
“John, a year ago you yourself were demanding money for guns and missiles.”
“And now I’m the chancellor, Wesley. Global destabilisation doesn’t come cheap. Imagine trying to do the weekly shop on a shoestring, only to discover you’ve spent half of it on a Type 26 City-class Frigate.”
The water bottle beeps.
“Is that thing on?”
“Yes, it tracks my hydration.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, hydration, location, purchasing habits, the likelihood of future political dissent.”
In swaggers Pat McFadden.
“Hands off cocks, on with your socks. John, what’s the difference between the Treasury and a care home?”
Healey sighs. “I don’t know Pat, what’s the difference between the Treasury and a care home?”
“They both stink of piss, but only one of them is full of leaks.”
“That’s lovely Pat. Can I interest you in a nice human-interest angle about a pensioner who’ll be £2.31 a week better off following my budget?”
“That’s a very small amount of money, John.”
“They are a very small pensioner.”
Louise Haigh joins them, pointing to her Apple watch.
“Dapper Laughs has made some satirical content about the penny off a jar of gherkins and it’s gone viral.”
“Dapper Laughs is a satirist now?” asks Emma Reynolds.
“Who the fuck is Dapper Laughs?” asks McFadden.
“He’s what happens when a bloke who got famous for shouting ‘Can I smell your fanny?’ at women discovers that irony is tax-deductible,” explains Haigh.
“Right,” says McFadden, “if I’m spending the next 48 hours explaining why cheaper pickles are a matter of national economic importance, can we at least be sure pensioners are getting something out of it too?”
“Pensioners are getting something out of it, Pat.”
“What?”
“Discounted gherkins.”
“Dapper’s just hit a million views,” announces Streeting, like its rolling news.
He balances his phone on top of Healey’s red box and loads up the video.
“Hands where we can see them, Louise. I don’t want to accidentally have to report my Android stolen,” he says, as they gather to watch the illustrious talent: “Rent higher than your salary? Gherkins! Schoolteachers teaching our children to be ashamed of their history? Colonial gherkins! Terrorists smuggled in on lorries? Refugee gherkins!”
“That’s not fair,” complains Reynolds. “We did citrus jams, too.”
“This is a textbook example of legitimate grievances being stripped of context, redirected towards handy scapegoats and repackaged as far-right talking points,” muses Healey, a former member of the Starmer administration.
“With a million views,” lauds a green-eyed Streeting.
“Two million now,” updates Haigh.
Healey sighs.
“First gherkins. Then it’s jam. Before you know it, the entire fiscal settlement is being discussed by people who don’t understand the difference between current expenditure and capital investment.”
“What is the difference?” asks Reynolds.
“Capital investment is when you buy something dear and explain that it will pay for itself in the future. Current expenditure is when you buy something dear and then have to justify it again next year.”
“The difference between buying a Challenger 3 tank, and paying 40 nurses,” clarifies Streeting.
The Palantir bottle beeps again.
“Bloody hell, that thing nags more than my wife,” says McFadden.
“I’m dehydrated.”
“You know, the Ministerial Code says that important policy announcements should be heard first in parliament,” says Haigh.
“Louise, the whole point of budget build-up week is to get ahead of the story by leaking the story before it’s a story,” explains Healey.
“Yes, and thanks to that, a comedian who’s been cancelled more times than HS2, is getting more eyeballs than the News at Ten,” she replies.
The bottle beeps again. “Hang on, I’ve got another notification,” says Streeting. “Based on your recent behaviour, there is a 73 per cent probability that you will support this budget.”
Healey brightens and picks up his phone.
“Kevin? John Healey here. Got another little something for you. As part of the MoD’s ‘Be Ready’ campaign, we’re launching an urgent review into the stockpiling of gherkins and citrus jams.”
He pauses. “You heard me, Kevin. Stockpiling. Oh, calm down. It’s only for the apocalypse. It’s not the end of the world.”
