“Very good, Prime Minister,” said Johnson, placing a teacup on a pile of papers in front of the P.M. Most of the papers had circular brown stains on them.
“Have you looked at the Opinion Polls this morning Johnson?” The P.M. asked.
“Not yet, Prime Minister.”
“Make it your next job. You need to know how popular I am.”
“I already have a very good idea of how popular you are in most quarters, Prime Minister.”
The P.M. looked hard at Johnson, who maintained his usual deadpan expression.
“Be that as it may, you need to keep abreast of how popular I am with the Great British Public. They’re the ones who vote for me, after all. I’ve already checked. I’ve been checking every day this week, as a matter of fact. Do you know I’ve got the highest ratings of any Prime Minister in history?”
“Indeed, Prime Minister.”
“Do you know why, Johnson?”
“I can’t say I do, Prime Minister.”
“It’s because I’m presiding over a grateful nation, that’s why.”
Johnson raised an eyebrow.
“Presiding? I thought we were a monarchy.”
“All right, ruling then.”
“Ruling?”
“You know full well what I mean, Johnson. Prime Ministering, or whatever it is that I do. Anyway, my nation is grateful because I’m making such a bloody good job of it. I was going to give it up, but I’ve decided it would be very selfish of me to deprive the nation of the benefit of having me as Prime Minister, when they clearly want me to go on, so I’m going to call a snap election in a few weeks before they change their minds. You know how fickle the public can be.”
“That’s wonderful news, Prime Minister,” said Johnson, in a tone of voice that didn’t quite live up to the enthusiasm of his words.
“Anyway, that’s why it’s important for you to check how popular I am. I’ll be too busy campaigning from now on to look at the opinion polls every day, and I want you to do it for me. I want you to keep me up to date on how popular I am, because if my ratings slip, I might have to call the election off until they improve again.”
“I see.”
“By the way Johnson, I’ve thought of a fantastic wheeze to keep my face in the news and boost my ratings even higher.”
“What might that be Prime Minister?”
“I’m going to declare a national holiday.”
“What’s this new-fangled holiday of yours going to be all about?”
“I’m going to call it V.O.Z. day, short for ‘Victory over Zombies Day’, and it’s going to commemorate Great Britain winning the war against the zombies. It’ll be a bit like a combination of Bonfire Night and V.E. day. My people can let off fireworks and have street parties, and that kind of thing. We’ll encourage them to dress up as zombies. That should get everyone onside, or almost everyone, including even some of the plebs who’d never normally vote for me in a month of Sundays.”
“But perhaps not the plebs of Huddersfield, Prime Minister,” said Johnson, taking a sip of his tea.
The P.M. reddened.
“It’s not my fault that I had to bomb Huddersfield because it was full of zombies, Johnson,” he said. “Anyway, we can make it up to them. What do they do up there in Huddersfield? Clog Dancing, isn’t it? That’s what I’ve heard. Well, we can have clog dancing at the street parties to show our support for Huddersfield. In fact, we can do more than that. We can have zombie-themed parties with the dancers dressed up as zombies. Just think of it. Clog-dancing zombies honouring the sacrifices made by the plucky town of Huddersfield. That should shut those stroppy northerners up.”
He took a languid sip of his tea.
“Where was I? Oh yes, the V.O.Z. day celebrations. President Doughnut is visiting me to get advice about how to deal with his zombie problem. I’ll schedule his visit to coincide with V.O.Z. day so he’ll be able to see for himself that the British people know how to get shot of zombies, and have a bloody good knees-up afterwards. That’ll get right up his wick, I tell you.”
“That will be absolutely splendid, Prime Minister.”
The P.M. took another sip of his tea.
“Order some bunting in, will you, Johnson, we’ll need to decorate the State Room for when the President comes over to celebrate V.O.Z. day with us. You might as well order some zombie outfits and clogs while you’re at it, so we can lay on some themed entertainment for him.”
“Very good, Prime Minister.”
“Oh, another thing. Have you heard any news about Bertie?”
“Bertie who, Prime Minister?”
“Bertie Doodah, the Queens tenth cousin twice removed. He went to President Doughnut’s topping-out ceremony for that preposterous wall of his, and he hasn’t been seen since. He probably got lost and couldn’t find his way home. He isn’t the sharpest tool in the box. None of these royals are. That’s why they’re so good at their job. They don’t think deeply about anything; they just get on with it. Sometimes I wish I was like them.”
“Perhaps you are, Prime Minister.”
“What was that?”
“Nothing, Prime Minister. Bertie was killed along with your Foreign Minister when a plane crashed onto the wall. Have you already forgotten about that?”
“If I have, it’s understandable. I have a lot on my mind. It’s not all beer and skittles running this great country of ours, you know. Now instead of having a go at me, why don’t you concentrate on getting the bunting for the Presidential knees-up?”
“Very well, prime Minister.”
CHAPTER 2
Doughnut slammed down the receiver of his telephone in the Oval Office, his face flushed with anger.
“Who does that God-damned limey ass-hole think he is?” he fumed. “He thinks he can talk to me how the hell he likes, just because he’s got rid of a few zombies from that worthless little strip of dirt he lives on. What’s it called again?”
The President’s Aide looked up from his iPhone.
“Even the limeys themselves aren’t sure what it’s called, sir,” he said. “They sometimes call it the United Kingdom, or the U.K. for short. The U.K. comprises of four countries: England, Scotland, wales and Northern Ireland.”
The President’s eyes began to glaze over. His Aide continued regardless.
“They have a few other names for it, too. Great Britain is one of them. Strictly speaking, that refers to the island off the coast of Western Europe in the —”
The President cut him short.
“I don’t care what the hell it’s called,” he said. “That limey sonofabitch thinks he can get one over on me. The reason he wants me to go over there is so that he can show off to the rest of the limeys that I’m at his beck and call. Well, I’ll show him. Make sure we take the biggest motorcade over there that any American President ever took to any country. I want to make him look like the poor relation, and I want it to be clear to everyone watching on television that he is the poor relation.
And another thing. Just in case he tries anything underhand, get the White House PR team at the ready. We need to put the right spin on this, and kill any stories about it that might be negative to us. Is that clear, Tyler?”
“Yes, Mr President. I’ll get right on it.”
CHAPTER 3