Boris Johnson: Well good morning colleagues. It has certainly been, um, an eventful week but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Or maybe it’s an oncoming train, who knows? But nil desperandum, we are putting new restrictions in place to combat Covid-19. Brexit is going terribly well and I think it’s safe to say that people have forgotten all about last month’s difficulties with the exam results. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your hard work. To give us a flavour of what each of you are up to, I want to go round the table and ask you to give us a brief synopsis of the things which currently concern your department. So, Dishy, sorry I … I mean, Rishi, maybe you could kick us off with a view from the Treasury.
Rishi Sunak: Thank you Prime Minister. Well as you know we are committed to phasing out the furlough scheme at the end of next month and I presented my new measures to parliament on Thursday. Unfortunately it won’t be as generous as the existing Job Retention Scheme. What we plan now is a scheme where we pay up to one-third of wages for any shortfall in hours worked, subject to employees working one-third of their normal hours.
BJ: That sounds very generous, Dishy. Sorry, I mean Rishi. Do you think I could take a sabbatical by working one-third of my usual hours and the taxpayer would fund the rest? And then I could get on with making some real money by going back to write for the Telegraph. After all I do have a wife, an ex-wife and six children to support. Or is it seven?
RS: Err, no. Sorry, that’s not how it works. Whilst we pay a third, the employer also has to pay a third.
BJ: But the taxpayer is my employer. So I could do one-third of my hours as usual funded by the taxpayer. Then the taxpayer could pay for half of the shortfall in hours whilst my employer, the taxpayer, funds the rest.
RS: Well Prime Minister, the taxpayer will only fork out a maximum of £697.92 per month.
BJ: Ah, not so good then. That’s not going to address my financial woes. I took a big enough pay cut to do this job in the first place. Honestly, how do people manage on £155,000 per year?
Dominic Cummings: Pity! If you worked a third of the hours, Boris, maybe you would do only one-third of the damage to my grandiose plans to restructure the economy.
BJ: Oh, ha-ha, Dom! I didn’t hear you come in. Wasn’t this meeting only for cabinet ministers?
DC: Don’t flatter yourself Johnson. I appointed half the cabinet!
BJ: Touché. One last question, Dishy. Sorry, er … Rishi. Doesn’t this all sound a bit expensive? I mean the plebs aren’t going to be happy if we have to put their taxes up to pay for it.
RS: Well the good news Prime Minister is that I have cancelled the Budget scheduled for November. So we won’t be announcing any tax rises this side of Christmas, though we will clearly have a bit of a deficit problem.
DC: Why don’t we just whack up the fines for people not complying with the new lockdown restrictions. That way we would enforce compliance with the new rules and claw back some money. Obviously there would have to be some exemptions. For instance, I’m not going to be paying any fines.
BJ: Obviously. Good idea, though. Let’s look into that. Now, Michael, let’s have an update on those Brexit preparations.
Michael Gove: Well Prime Minister, as you know we are three months away from finally being free of the EU which will allow us to do all those things that sovereign nations do. Like controlling our own borders.
BJ: Ah, yes, on that point. I’m hearing whispers about problems in Kent.
MG: Yes, well you see, it turns out that the road haulage industry has not been listening to a word we say and they have failed to make preparations for a no-deal Brexit.
BJ: The one we said wouldn’t happen? What seems to be the problem?
MG: Quite. Well it turns out that in the event of a no-deal Brexit this will mean customs checks on both sides of the Channel and it might lead to some big queues on the motorways towards Dover.
BJ: Worse than it is already? I was driven down there the other day and the traffic was horrendous. We were held up by an hour due to road works.
MG: It could get a tad worse. We are potentially looking at queues of up to 7000 lorries, meaning it would take a couple of days to clear the ports. Of course, it won’t always be that bad. Eventually, hauliers would realise the situation is so bad that they will stop delivering goods into and out of the UK, so the queues would diminish of their own accord. The slight downside with that is it might impact on food imports. Moderate avocado shortages and all that. The good news is we have a better solution.
BJ: Which is?
MG: We’ll put the customs border in Kent. So any lorries which don’t have the requisite paperwork can’t enter the county. All those Tory voters in Kent won’t see any horrendous queues. The genius of it is that with city centres deserted thanks to Covid, we can back up the lorries into urban centres such as London which is stuffed full of Labour voters, thus minimising the electoral damage.
BJ: Well it has its charms but I get enough grief from backbenchers about putting a border in the Irish Sea. We are trying to pass an Internal Market Bill in which taxes and tariffs are the same across the country. Now you tell me you want a border in Kent?
DC: You do realise that if we put the border in Kent, illegal migrants landing on the beaches will be able to claim that they are still in French customs territory and therefore cannot be sent back to where they came from because they’re still there?
MG: Don’t worry, Prime Minister. I have it on good authority that the French will cave. After all, they need us more than we need them.
BJ: Jolly good. I’ll leave it in your capable hands then. We’re running a bit short of time but I just wanted a quick update from Matt Hancock on the health situation. Everyone has dealt so well with the big issues that I’m sure you won’t want to let the side down.
Matt Hancock: Thank you Prime Minister. As you know, because you announced it, we implemented new restrictions which will force pubs and restaurants to close at 10pm. And I am confident that the world beating test, track and trace system will be in place soon.
DC: Good, because I believe we cannot process enough tests due to extremely high demand. And is it true that such high demand has meant we are running out of the chemicals to process the Covid tests?
MH: Look, if we make the tests free then obviously demand is going to be high. As for running out of chemicals, that’s fake news. You shouldn’t believe anything you read in a newspaper unless we leaked it in the first place. In fact the Test and Trace app is now ready to download as we speak.
DC: Except that the tests aren’t free. They are paid for by the taxpayer. As for the app, it doesn’t work on anything older than an iPhone6. And that’s a pity, Matt, because I want to collect all the information to build a huge database that I can let my team of data scientists loose on.
MH: Dom, this is irrelevant. What matters is we halt the spread of the disease. The latest plan is to lock students into their universities for the next six months and prevent them from going out and enjoying themselves. In this way we should be able to curb the rate of infection by next year, but also ensure that students do what they are supposed to do at university which is to study.
BJ: I’m not sure about that. When I was at university I partied hard for three years. Did I ever tell about that time at the Bullingdon Club when we had a Rolling Stones themed evening? It involved a lot of Goats Head Soup and Sticky Fingers as I recall, though I don’t think it had much to do with the albums of the same name. Anyway, I digress. Afraid I will have to call a halt to proceedings here. I have to dash off to listen to the Attorney General explain why our Internal Market Bill can break the law without actually breaking the law. So keep up the good work, and remember the old motto, Lex enim homines parum. Cheerio!
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