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“Help me write a song of freedom
Stand up for all that’s fair.
Help me build a righteous kingdom
Fit home for all that’s there.”
Steve Dixie 1967 “The Bruiser” album.
CHAPTER 41 NUMBER TEN DOWNING STREET.
The Prime Minister took the spoon from his coffee mug. “OK Jerry. You’ve read all this stuff. How will it play?”
“You have to be careful on this. You’re the PM. If you say yes, it will happen, if you say no, then it won’t.”
“I am inclined to say no,” said the PM as he carried his mug from the small kitchen to the private lounge beyond.
“It would be safer. A lot safer.” Jerry The Spin took a seat by the PM.
“But what if it really is possible? Someone has sold this to the treasury in a big way,” said the PM
“Doctor Grimsby Roylot,” said Jerry The Spin
“Who the hell is he?”
“Oxford egg head. He did that TV show.” Jerry took a sip of coffee and wondered if he should take a sandwich from the silver tray.
“Oh him. I didn’t see it, but I know who you mean.” The PM didn’t get much time for TV and heard about programmes from his wife and children.
“Well he has come up with some sort of voodoo accountancy and convinced the treasury…..”
“I know I read it. We scrap the carriers and fighters. We use the spaceship to land troops instead. And we get rid of strategic air lift and lord knows what else. And we find a use for atomic waste to power interplanetary ships. We find a new economic role for Britain supplying the world with minerals. But then we go on to scrap the Bomb, and we persuade everyone else to do the same, and then we use artificial meteorites instead. But what if it doesn't work? I cannot go down as the Prime Minister who left Britain defenceless because he was sold a bum spaceship.”
Jerry thought he would wait till the PM took a sandwich first. “That is why you must be careful. Do not ever give a ringing endorsement on this. You can leave that to the treasury and the military. They can carry the can if things go tits up.”
“I hear you.” The PM took a piece of cheese and a pickled onion on a tooth pick.
“But if it actually works, then you could be the PM who saved our economy and set the basis of national prosperity for centuries to come. You’d be a hero. You’d be up there with Churchill and….uh….people.”
“Or the biggest idiot out.” The PM crunched on the onion.
“So be careful. No overt enthusiasm, just a cautious acceptance of trials. You don’t lose much just funding research into the thing.”
“But we can only do the funding if we scrap the carriers and stuff,” said the PM “We are getting seriously stretched with flood defences. Seriously. And if sea levels go on rising then in fifty years we are finished, Or good as.”
“Maybe these sun shades will work.”
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