From the diary of Carrie Johnson, Britain’s First Lady
HE looked shaken, I’ll give him that. He’d cadged a fag off Special Branch and was smoking it in the garden.
‘What’s this about?’ I said. ‘I thought it would be sports,’ he said. ‘I thought it would be some kind of, I don’t know, traditional Sunni sporting thing. Maybe with these falcons they’re all so bloody proud of.’
‘Instead,’ he continued, ‘they lead me to this arena and there’s three men kneeling down and, well, it turned out it wasn’t a sporting thing at all. Though it was very traditional and Sunni.’
Poor Big Dog. I lead him upstairs and make him a Bailey’s coffee. ‘And the oil?’ I prompt gently. After all, it’s hardly news that the Saudis like a bit of blood in their sand.
‘Completely forgot about it,’ he says, like a useless fucking dickhead. Well I – on the behalf of Rishi, whichever twat’s in energy, and the people of Britain – went bloody apeshit.
How do you forget fucking oil when you go to Saudi? All they’ve got’s oil. The only reason anyone lives in the arsing desert is the oil. It’s like going to the bar and forgetting to buy a fucking drink, which is another of the tight bastard’s tricks.
‘The beheadings threw me off,’ he said. ‘I only went along to be polite. You know what Arabs are like about hospitality. And, well, I couldn’t eat my partridge on the plane home. I’ve never seen anything like that, not even at Eton.’
‘And what are we going to do about keeping the lights on?’ I said. ‘Keeping cars running? All that shit that means another term in office, not out on our arses going cap-in-hand for after-dinner speaking cash?’ No answer. He hasn’t a clue.
I suppose on the bright side his newfound squeamishness will mean a definite no to Priti’s daily memos about bringing back the death penalty. Silver linings.
