05 May 2016
Crisis at the Ministry of Misery and Discord
by Chin Chin
MINUTES
(as smuggled out by an undercover reporter from the Shaw Sheet)
Present: The Minster, The Permanent Secretary, The Deputy Secretary and the Assistant Undersecretary.
MINISTER: Well, you have made a mess of it. Honestly, you lot couldn’t arrange discord at a UKIP meeting. What on earth am I going to tell the PM? All right then, how did it happen?
PERMANENT SECRETARY: Well, we thought we had the committee well covered; a hint that the Government would give in to the junior doctors; an offer of further money for GPs; promises of state funded conferences for members of the Tobacco Advisory Group in Las Vegas without wives. We offered them everything you suggested, Minister.
MINISTER: And yet, and yet, despite these bribes, the Royal College of Physicians still came out with the worst possible answer. E-cigarettes are almost harmless! No, no, it’s worse than that, they should be promoted as a public health measure. They didn’t even find any evidence that they encourage people to start smoking, for God’s sake. What is that going to do to all those ex-smokers who use them?
PERMANENT SECRETARY: (reluctantly) I suppose it’ll make them… (he blushes and searches for the right word.)
MINISTER: Yes? (He glares down the table and the Permanent Secretary visibly wilts.)
PERMANENT SECRETARY: Er, well, er – (he looks down, so as not to meet the ministerial eye) – happier, Minister.
MINISTER: Yes, happier. Exactly. And what happens when people get happier?
PERMANENT SECRETARY: (Now clearly reciting from a memorised mission statement but still looking down.) They become less discontented and less fractious, Minister.
MINISTER: And?
PERMANENT SECRETARY: If they stop being fractious about day to day matters they will start to notice how badly the politicians do on everything else.
MINISTER: And that’s why..? (The Permanent Secretary has caught his gaze now and, like a rabbit trapped in headlights, is unable to look away.)
PERMANENT SECRETARY: That’s why successive governments have funded us as a secret ministry, so that we can generate as much low level misery and discord as possible.
MINISTER: Quite. And now, despite our efforts, 2.6 million people have suddenly become happier just when the mayoral elections are coming up. What will the Government think about that?
PERMANENT SECRETARY: (miserably) That the money they spend on us was wasted.
MINISTER: Yes, and let me remind the meeting that that is the money which pays your salaries. So what are you going to do about it?
DEPUTY SECRETARY: We could try to get the report withdrawn. Car accidents for the authors or a little blackmail perhaps? I could see if any married members of the committee are having affairs. After all that is what GCHQ is for.
MINISTER: Idiot. Has it occurred to you that the public might smell a rat if they read a report from the Royal College of Physicians saying that vaping would lead to “tobacco harm reduction” one day and then, miraculously, it was all reversed the following week? I know they are stupid but we have to do better than that.
ASSISTANT UNDERSECRETARY: (brightly) Just a moment. What about the killjoys, you know, the ones who were working to have e cigarettes banned in lots of places as well as ordinary cigarettes on the grounds that they just like banning things? The report will certainly make them miserable, so we can put that down as a gain!
DEPUTY SECRETARY: Yes, there are loads of those. There are the ones who have always insisted that e-cigarettes create bad role models and encourage youths to take up smoking, for example. They won’t be very happy to discover that that was all nonsense. Then there is the Welsh Labour party. Didn’t they try to ban e-cigarettes in enclosed public places?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY: Yes, they haven’t succeeded yet but they won’t be very happy about losing their best policy.
DEPUTY SECRETARY: And the Scottish Government, what about their ban on e-cigarettes in hospital grounds?
ASSISTANT UNDERSECRETARY: Yes, and there is the BBC, of course. Bans have become quite politically correct, so you can bet they will have had one.
DEPUTY SECRETARY: Of course all those organisations are going to be pretty miserable and disappointed but actually it’s much better than that. There are all the individuals who like to get at people who use e-cigarettes; you know, disappointed people doing their best to make life uncomfortable for their spouses, people in offices who insisted on other employees going out to vape so that they can take a sneak look at their files and steal their ideas. What about the know-it-alls who rely on lecturing their friends on the undesirability of e cigarettes to give themselves a pleasant feeling of superiority?
PERMANENT SECRETARY: They all sound as if they are fairly miserable already, but still the report will certainly make them even unhappier. There are lots of them, too. Perhaps, Minister, you could tell the Cabinet that deepening their misery and feelings of inadequacy is exactly the triumph we were aiming for, that it is all the culmination of a deeply laid cunning plan. (The Deputy Secretary and Assistant Undersecretary nod enthusiastically.)
MINISTER: Why am I surrounded by complete idiots? We are the Ministry of Misery and Discord. How on earth can I justify something on the basis that it will discourage the very people on whom we rely from doing just the sort of thing which we want them to do? It isn’t very clever to make our own supporters too miserable to function. No, what we need is a completely new initiative to take everyone’s minds off this disaster.
PERMANENT SECRETARY: Our campaign to get rugby banned in schools seems a hopeful one, Minister. Lots of pupils love the game so its abolition at school level on health and safety grounds should destroy quite a lot of enjoyment. Why don’t we move that to the top of our list of targets?
The Minister didn’t need to reply to that. He already had his arm around the Permanent Secretary’s shoulders and acolytes were on their way to dust down the relevant files.
If you enjoyed this article please share it using the buttons above
Please click here if you would like a weekly email on publication of the Shaw Sheet
