I had a dream last night. In it I discovered myself ushered into Number 10 Downing Street, surprisingly as the brand new Prime Minister. I passed a line of men and girls respectfully acknowledging me and was shown into an oak-panelled room. As I sat down behind an enormous desk, an elderly gentleman in a sensible pin-striped suit closed the door and stood before me, the model of cool, respectful duty.
‘My task, Sir, as Senior Secretary, is to assist you to settle in.’ The voice was formal and without warmth.
‘Thank you. Is there any coffee?’
‘Greek, Sir. As you favor.’ From somewhere a cup appeared and I sipped on it.
‘Take some notes,’ I said.
‘As you want, Sir,’ said the secretary, stiffly taking a seat and producing a pad of paper.
‘Now I need to place together a cupboard of those that are competent, trustworthy, sensible and have experience of what they’re to be answerable for. And who haven’t any mixed motives or agendas.’
A frown crept across the secretary’s face but he said nothing and wrote the words down.
‘And I need them to be honest with me. To disagree with me when I’m improper. I need to know the reality.’
‘The truth, Sir?’ The word seemed unfamiliar to him.
‘I need to encourage and reward those that work on the frontline in hospitals, schools, police. I need to set them free from form-filling and the various levels of administrative bureaucracy.’
‘You would put a lot of administrators out of labor, Sir.’
‘Let them plant trees.’
Fortified by the coffee I felt I used to be starting to get into the swing of things. ‘I need to reward individuals who heal people and who serve the community. I need people to know they matter. And I need a zero approach to corruption and dishonesty. Penalties for cheating the country. And for distorting the reality or the press fabricating untruths.’
‘If I’d indicate, Sir, the prisons are full.’
‘Give them vibrant orange uniforms. Put them on the streets cleansing up graffiti and picking up rubbish.’
‘They won’t need to do it, Sir.’
‘For day-after-day they work they’ll have a day reduced from their sentence.
‘And I need a culture where people want to provide things away, reasonably than keep them or accumulate more.’
There was an ungainly pause. ‘I see, Sir.’
‘Oh, and might now we have a written structure?’
‘You’d have to confer with the King about that, Sir.’
‘I’ll. I also need to confer with the leaders of the opposition. Let’s arrange a lunch meeting.’
‘About what, Sir? It’s not customary. They lost.’
‘About long-term issues. Education, energy, environment, health care. Seek consensus.’
‘Consensus, Sir?’
‘It’s a Latin word. Opposite of conflict.’
I sensed a hidden irritation.
‘I need to look into moving parliament. From London. Put it somewhere central – Birmingham. And have a latest constructing with an arc of seats in order that we do not all sit confronting one another.’
‘Innovative.’
‘Oh, and the bishops.’
‘The bishops?’
‘I need to search out those who don’t preach what they’re alleged to uphold. And sack them.’
‘I see.’
I paused. ‘That will do to begin with.’
The Senior Secretary reflected for a moment. ‘If I’ll say so, Sir, you should change the country, don’t you?’
‘Exactly.’
‘I just wondered, Sir, whether perhaps . . . just perhaps . . . you is perhaps within the improper career. As Prime Minister, that’s.’
‘Please explain yourself.’
‘Well, Sir, it’s the wisdom of politics to know the boundaries of political power. Prime ministers appear to direct the nation but, in point of fact, they do not change it.’
‘They don’t? So who does change the nation? Give me examples.’
‘Well, the classic example is within the 18th and nineteenth centuries, when those that modified how the nation thought and lived were the preachers, the evangelists and social reformers. John and Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, William Booth, Elizabeth Fry and Josephine Butler. Their work did what politics couldn’t do.’
‘What a thought!’ I said. ‘You’d higher give this job to another person.’
And with that I woke up!
