GORDON BROWN CONSIDERED SELLING OFF THE QUEEN

A leading centre-left think-tank, BaMophet, first floated the idea of ‘selling the queen’ at one of Gordon Brown’s regular ‘blue-skies sessions’, reports Humphrey Clanker, our Parliamentary Commentator.

Chris Heel, The Ideas facilitator at BaMophet was greatly enthused by the idea.  Many cabinet aides were equally interested.  After all, the ongoing banking collapse looked set to destroy Capitalism itself. Heel suddenly found that he had, in his own words:  ‘the ear of Gordon Brown, just as the bankers had the PM by the knackers’.

‘It was one of those rare moments in time, when revolutionary ideas are considered.  Disasters, after all, make great opportunities’ said Heel.

‘”Prime Minister”, I said, “we have a great way to scrape back some of the trillions you squandered over the past decade or so”‘, recalled the think-tanker, blowing on his franchised skinny latte, and looking wistfully at the rainy streets outside.

Queen: Strapped to a nuclear warhead

 

So what was the idea, I asked of  Heel:

 ‘Well, in a nutshell, the idea was to sell shares in the Queen.  Basically, individuals or countries, even corporations would bid for a stake of Her Majesty, the winners getting first dibs on engaging her for special occasions.  Which of course would be fine if, say, Tonga bought a share in the Queen, then she would be obliged to fly out and sit there whilst, you know, they did one of those little tribal rituals – no problem – and we’d be seeing a sizeable return on her visit.  But obviously problems could arrive – if say, a hedonistic rock star bought a stake in the Queen, one could imagine her sitting stoney-faced in the corner whilst said rock star snorted cocaine off a naked stripper: Highly embarrassing. Or North Korea became succesful stakeholders – quite terrifying what they could subject her to.’

Like what? I asked of a now noticeably enthused Heel.

‘Imagine if their leader, Kim, whatever – the freak with the big glasses – if he held her hostage, and tied her to a nuclear warhead.  -Safe to say, we began to envisage problems with the plan.  But they could have been ironed out: That’s what think-tanks are for after all!’ he said, brightly.

So, is the idea – or ‘floater’ – as Heel calls it, still a possibility?

‘I can envisage us selling stakes in just about anyone in the public eye – let’s face it, we’ve already sold off virtually all of British industry and we produce f*** all.  So let’s use the one thing we do produce: celebrity.’

Are you saying the Queen is little more than a commodity? I asked.

‘To be honest, what does she do?  – She sits there, she waves, she has no real authority. Let’s get her working for the country.’

It was then I thought I detected a slightly mad glint in Heel’s eye. Do we really want to sell everything? Is this the natural conclusion, the denoument of an unchecked Capitalist society?

And suddenly, the phrase, ‘selling off the family jewels’ sprang into my mind.  And with some sadness, I realised, Heel was right: We had sold off most of our jewels a long time ago:  Rolls Royce, Jaguar, British Steel, Cadbury’s….the list goes on.

I guess, having sold most of the jewels already, the next logical step would be to sell the crown itself. 

Maybe Heel’s got a point.

I had one last question for him:  ‘Would you consider selling shares in, say, a human soul?’ I asked.

He pushed his latte to one side and leant forward conspiritorially:

‘Why? You know where I can buy one?’  He asked. 

And a shiver went down my spine.