Change You Can
Believe In
The newly elected British
Prime Minister gazed from a Downing Street window
at the gigantic, yellow plastic duck that towered
above all London’s buildings.
He recalled a time when
politicians had ideologies to promote and cared
passionately about issues of the day. Gradual
changes of attitude had occurred until the
expenses scandal of 2009 awakened the public
realisation that politicians had become amoral
and self-serving.
Political statements had
become simply contrived arguments aimed at
attributing any negative event to a rival.
Without a moral or ideological compass, personal
gain had become the primary objective of British
politicians.
Voter frustration and
cynicism drove election turn-outs to the lowest
ever recorded.
It was in this climate, and
on the eve of a mid-term parliamentary election,
that three factors contributed to Nigel Smith,
the Liberal Democrat candidate for Snodbury West,
changing the course of British politics.
The first was his reading
of a Monster Raving Loony Party manifesto. The
second was certainty that he had no prospect of
becoming elected. Finally, he was distraught when
he learned of his wife’s affairs with both
the Labour and Conservative candidates.
Despite these influences,
Nigel was never totally sure what had driven him
to commit his party in a television interview to
providing, if elected, a lifetime supply of free
custard to all Snodbury residents.
Next day, the local Party
and the national leadership faced a political
dilemma. Should they condemn Nigel for making
stupid statements that brought the Party into
disrepute, or should he be applauded on his
election to Parliament with one hundred percent
of the Snodbury West vote on a one hundred
percent voter turnout?
There quickly followed
another mid-term election for the London Borough
of Westford, and again the Liberal Democrats had
no expectations of victory. Emboldened by
Nigel’s surrealist success, however, the
candidate championed the removal of all the
Borough’s road signs.
This second landslide
victory confirmed the mood of the British public.
All interest had been lost in traditional
politics, but the British sense of comic irony
remained, and votes could be guaranteed for the
most silly manifesto pledge.
As the General Election
approached, amorality and self-interest made it
easy for parliamentary candidates to cease
campaigning on social, economic and security
issues in favour of increasingly bizarre and
pointless follies.
Labour’s plan to paint
all grass pink proved popular, as did the
Conservative proposal to build a ladder to the
moon - it was going to be a close run contest.
Then Nigel formulated his masterstroke of
political and comic genius – the Liberal
Democrats would honour their manifesto
commitments!
Convoys of custard tankers
arrived in Snodbury. Traffic ground to a halt in
Westford.
Other parties argued it
unfair and contrary to parliamentary tradition to
take seriously promises to the electorate, but
public support was won. The Liberal Democrat
election slogan, ‘Insane Ideas, Implemented!!!’,
was something in which the people could finally
believe.
Even the closure of schools
and hospitals by the former government to fund
The London Duck could not save them from defeat.
Nigel Smith, Britain’s
first Liberal Democrat Prime Minister, turned
from the window of Number Ten and donned two
large ears and a tail to complete his kangaroo
costume. Politics had indeed changed, he
reflected as he hopped to the door and into the
street where the media awaited the delivery of
his inaugural stand-up routine to the Nation.
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