Thanks to my mole at
Better Together for intercepting this e-mail.
I can’t imagine who “Alistair” and “Blair M” might be, although they
seem to be quite important in the organisation, so if you have any ideas please
let me know.
Hi Alistair,
I trust your anger management therapy is going well, and hope
to see you soon here in Scotland, which I know you regard as your second home, when
it isn’t your first. It is, as always,
an honour to present my report on Better Together’s recent campaign activities.
Firstly, many thanks for asking GCHQ to send us figures on
the Prime Minister’s “phone-a-friend” initiative. We’ve now analysed these and, as we feared, they’re
somewhat disappointing. With half of
England underwater and the government’s response a mixture of back-stabbing,
extravagant promises and hasty back-pedalling, it seems people aren’t exactly making
it a priority to ring up their Scottish friends and say, “Wow, stick with this Westminster
lot – they’ve totally nailed running the country!”
We did identify one useful stat: a brief spike in phone calls to Scotland midway
through Saturday evening. It was just
Englishmen wanting to gloat about the rugby, of course, but readers won’t realise
that when our selectively-edited graphs appear in the Herald’s imminent 4-page “Weekend Wooing” pull-out.
Now, one minor concern.
As you know, some key BT donors and their bodyguards visited our office
last week, leaving lasting impressions on me personally. We discussed how to reverse the trend in opinion
polls, which had become so obvious that even Professor Curtice had noticed. Our conclusion, if the subsequent anaesthetic
hasn’t dulled my memory, was that we should start sending out a more positive
message to voters.
That’s all very well, but how does it square with today’s
news on the BBC that George Osborne is about to rule out a currency union? How is any propagandist this side of Alpha
Centauri supposed to spin that as a positive message? Might as well try training an elephant to
tap-dance. I know it’s the BBC, so obviously
there’s a liberal sprinkling of pish involved, but, given all the hullaballoo, he
must actually be going to say it, right?
Please don’t get me wrong.
I love misery. I pour vinegar on
my bran flakes every morning, and if my toast doesn’t land buttered side down I
kick it around until it does. But now the
staff are confused by the mixed messages.
Are we supposed to be nice or nasty?
Was it a waste of time looking up “positive” in the dictionary? Why weren’t we told about this before flushing
490,000 undistributed “Goodbye To The Pound” leaflets down the toilet? Now we’re
uncertain what we should be doing and
the drains are blocked. That’s no good
for morale.
What about the efforts we’ve put into Johann Lamont’s
smiling training? We’ve already gone
through half-a-dozen reinforced mirrors, and incurred significant agency
expenses after two of our permanent trainers became traumatised. The staff are in uproar because the milk for
their coffee keeps going sour and they can’t say “Hello” in the corridor
without getting a dose of her withering sarcasm. Personally, I still prefer Plan B, where we
hold Johann prisoner for seven months and replace her with a giant smiley sock
puppet. No-one at Holyrood would notice,
and the puppet would stand more chance of getting Labour to approve her tax
devolution proposals.
What about the money that’s already gone into the new charm
offensive? For example, on hiring an
open-top bus to drive Strathallan School pupils down Princes Street while they
pelt passers-by with tubes of Love Hearts.
Or replacing all of our switchboard operators with minions from Despicable Me in the hope that callers
will find them cuter and funnier. Or buying cuddly toys to send to local debates
in place of speakers, to show the audience we love them even if we can’t be
arsed to defend our position in public.
What about our plans to engage with voters through music? Ruth Davidson is clearly ready to launch into
Land Of Hope And Glory at the
slightest provocation, and we’re considering sending her up a Munro and
filming her Sound of Music style. Douglas and Danny are all set to go on tour
as the New Alexander Brothers, just as soon as Danny can be surgically detached
from George Osborne. Ian Davidson’s irony-free
rendition of Shipbuilding is expected
to go viral on YouTube, and Anas
Sarwar is working on an ambitious project he calls his “Wall Of Sound”. We may well bring the whole shebang together
in an open-air summer concert, if we can find a football stadium small enough.
Our natural supporters in the media would surely enjoy a
move away from constant negativity. When
the editor of the Herald picks up the
phone to take dictation, we want to hear the birdsong of welcome in his voice,
not the clink of anti-depressants in his glass.
When Sally Magnusson reads out the lies we pump into Pacific Quay each
day, we want to watch her gasp at their sheer audacity, not read them out with the
merest arch of an eyebrow before moving on to that night’s road traffic
accident.
So, bearing all of this advice in mind, I wonder if you
could pop round to your old house to ask the Chancellor if he might reconsider? I’m
sure the head-butt last time was an unfortunate accident, and in any case you
could wear a protective helmet.
Meanwhile, with a degree of resignation, we’ll restart the creaky
old baggage carousel and set the scare stories trundling endlessly round again: EU, pensions, borders, supermarket prices,
defence. Of course, there’s now a space
where “currency” used to be. Perhaps I
could fill it with one of the cuddly toys?
That would be the best of both worlds.
Yours aye (in the sense of “forever”, naturally),
Blair M
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