Monday 1st April before Noon
A man came running out of number 10 Downing Street. He screamed, ‘Someone’s killed the Prime Minister!’ He said it several times, but no-one took any notice. Two policemen just looked at him as if he was just a crackpot and one of them spoke to him.
‘Come on Sir, move along you’re causing an obstruction!’
‘Didn’t you hear what I said?’
‘Yes sir, very amusing.’
‘Don’t you care about our Prime Minister being murdered?’
‘Yes of course I do,’ the policeman looking at his colleague. ‘We all do. But he hasn’t been murdered has he, now be honest. We all know the date today and it is before 12 noon. It’s April the first.’
‘I tried my very best, I wanted to bring a little zest and excitement to my new job.’
‘Nice try Chancellor – but you’d better get back to your office and sort out the Police Pensions you promised to do last week, as I recall from the private conversation we had in the “Coffee Pot Shop.” I hope you haven’t forgotten, I’ve told the lads you are going deal with it, don’t let me down, if you do, the Prime Minister won’t get any of our votes and he’ll want to know the reason why and we will point our fingers in your direction.’
Tuesday 2nd April 8 am
The Prime Minister gave instructions to builders, who built over night – “Stocks.” The Chancellor has been placed in the stocks and selected members of the public who were good at hitting their targets had been invited to throw rotten tomatoes and stale eggs at the Chancellor all day. The member of the public who scored the most bulleyes than anyone else would be knighted or made a Dame and given pocket money of a thousand pounds every week for the rest of his or her life. Needless to say, the contest was fiercely fought and underhand tricks had not been ruled out. The Police were invited to join in, but declined because of a Pension Clause.
Wednesday 3rd April 8 am
The Prime Minister had a lie in, having forgotten to put the alarm clock on and eventually emerged at 12noon and gave the order for the Chancellor to be released. A second wave of the public who had taken over from the first selected group continued to throw rotten tomatoes and stale eggs from 8am until 12noon and demanded the same rewards. The Prime Minister pointed out that if they had read the small print – the deal was for 24 hours and not for four hours. A member of the public pointed out that there was no small print to be read.
‘There you go!’ said, the Prime Minister, ‘It was so small you couldn’t see it, better go to “Spec Savers” next time!’
Thursday 4th April
The Chancellor got up early, snatched a mug of tea and toast and marmalade and headed for his office to try and catch up on the work that had lain in his “IN TRAY” since Tuesday. He was annoyed that the Prime Minister made him a laughing stock for a day and a half. He thought he saw a joke in what he thought, but his brain was not functioning properly.
The Commissioner of Police arrived and was ushered into the Chancellor’s office. The Chancellor was on the phone and nodded to his visitor to sit down. After thirty minutes had lapsed the Chancellor replaced the handset. Sorry about that, terribly important phone-call. I know why you’ve come, you want to chat about the Police Pension! The Commissioner grinned and said, ‘Congratulations are in order. I understand from one of my men you were made a Pillar of Society yesterday.’
The Chancellor retorted, ‘Ha, Bloody Ha! How can you be so rude to say that to me, don’t you know what happened to me yesterday, don’t you read the papers?’
‘No! I don’t read the papers, you can’t trust what they print. The front page is always a screaming sensational headline and it wasn’t true what they printed about me. I didn’t have an affair with Lady Gore, it was a fissure of lies.’
The Commissioner of Police stopped speaking, becoming aware he was blurting out his excuses to someone who didn’t know about his indiscretions with the opposite sex. ‘A man in my position has to maintain a certain amount of decorum.’
The Chancellor seeing a joke that he had heard of a long time ago, seized the opportunity of saying, ‘That’s what you do to apples before eating them!’
’What are you waffling on about?’
‘You know, de-core them – apples.’
The Commissioner of Police was not amused by the joke and stormed out of the office forgetting that he had not put across his plan to the Chancellor about the Police Pension he wanted him to consider, but he had left all the paperwork for the Chancellor to read.
The Chancellor saw the briefcase, it was lush black leather, just what he was looking for but couldn’t afford to buy one, because they were too pricey for his budget. He must have word with the Prime Minister about his pay as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he was sure he should get more than £50 a week.
He took the contents from the briefcase and threw them in his waste paper basket and replaced some documents of his own and tucking the briefcase under his arm he went to one of his private rooms to have his coffee and his usual Ginger Nut biscuit.
As he dipped his Ginger Nut into his coffee to make it a lot softer for his ill fitted National Health dentures to cope with, the Chancellor spread out the papers he had in his new found briefcase. “The master plan: How to get into Number Ten Downing Street by other means?” The Chancellor scratched his near balding head for some sort of solution. He was determined to murder the Prime Minister as soon as he was granted a wage increase. It was a bloody cheek of the high almighty Commissioner of Police putting across the police pension plan. It was fun talking to nobody for half an hour.
Friday 5th April 10 am
The Chancellor had a bit of lie in, he hadn’t realized what the time was as the last thing he liked to do was play computer games. It was two in the morning when he with his hot cocoa and ginger nut biscuit finally went to bed. He had overslept and someone was banging on his door and the shrillness of the bell echoed around the house. Yawning he reached out with his feet the pretty coloured pink slippers with the bows on top and shuffled down to the front door. He couldn’t afford servants or a chef and had no wife. The last girl-friend he had said, ‘She wouldn’t touch him with a barge pole.’
Bleary-eyed he opened the front door and found two policemen on his doorstep. They informed him that someone had killed the Prime Minister. ‘Oh damn it all, I told the milkman to leave me some cream this morning.’ The policemen looked at each other and one said to the other, ‘Perhaps he didn’t hear, he hasn’t got his hearing aid in!’ ‘Look at my newspaper all shredded up, I bet it’s that bloody dog at No. 12. With the newspaper clutched in one hand and two pints in the other he closed the door with his foot and wearily walked to the kitchen, sat down, placing the milk on the table. He spread out the newspaper and saw the headlines.
“Prime Minister Slain”
