This wasn’t how it was meant to be. This wasn’t his best life. It should have been him, not Lord Big Dave, who commandeered the private plane for a surprise visit to Ukraine. It should have been him who got the photo op of a handshake with President Zelenskiy. He was good at all that PR bollocks. Standing around with the great and the good while never really saying anything. The perfect job for a man of little brain.
Instead he had been shifted to the Home Office bunker. Expected to actually do something while working with the batshit and the flatliners. In all probability a career-ending move. The ultimate crash and burn. To cap it all he hadn’t even yet managed to locate the first-class compartment in the back of his government limo. Where was the fun in that?
It was a decidedly grumpy James Cleverly then who headed out on Thursday’s morning media round to try to explain the government’s latest Rwanda plan. Still, at least he had the Greatest Story Ever Told to tell. The slam dunk that was guaranteed to win the next election. First stop was the Today studio at the BBC.
“Good morning,” said Amol Rajan.
“If you say so,” replied Jimmy Dimly. Rocking the passive aggression.
“OK. So the government has lost its supreme court appeal and yet the prime minister has given a press conference saying he’s got a brilliant plan to start the deportation flights in the spring. If it’s so brilliant, why didn’t you avoid wasting time and millions of pounds in legal fees and do this a year ago?”
Jimmy D sighed. Why were all journalists half-witted? Come to think of it, most lawyers were braindead too. He was going to have to spell this one out in words of one syllable. Though he wasn’t entirely sure how many syllables syllable had.
Moving on. It was like this. The supreme court had actually decided in the government’s favour. This is what so many people, including the judges, had failed to realise. The court had found Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman to have been totally within their rights to send foreigners wherever they wanted. He knew this because the government had some of the finest minds at work on this …
“Er … yes,” said Rajan. “But they’ve also had Sunak’s, Suella’s, Lord Big Dave’s and … yours.”
Silence as Jimmy D took that in. Dead air. Amol tried to retrack to first principles. Was the point not that Rwanda had been deemed an unsafe country? It had an unfortunate track record of shooting refugees it didn’t like. It didn’t hold free and fair elections. Its courts and judiciary were a joke. It had been found guilty of sending death squads into the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He could go on.
“Oh,” laughed Dimly. There was that. But where was the problem? Why should any of that be a hindrance. Because what the UK government was going to do was sign a treaty – make that a Treaty with a capital T – with Rwanda, in which its president, Paul Kagame, said he would do his best to behave but couldn’t promise there wouldn’t be the odd relapse. But what was the odd bit of recreational torture between friends?
Then – and here was the really cunning bit – Rishi would get parliament to pass a law saying that Rwanda was “Really free, really free, really really really really free, kick me”, which would totally confuse the supreme court into silence. And the kicker was the killer clause which would say: “This law is the most important law in the universe, so that means it is recognised as absolute by every inter-galactic judiciary. So no one will be able to challenge it anywhere. All European and international courts will be abolished.”
Rajan sounded understandably confused. Could we wind back a bit? Return to first principles. What the government was proposing was to pass a law saying that Rwanda was a safe country regardless of whether it complied with any legal definitions of what a safe country was.
“Absolutely,” chirped Jimmy D. For the first time sounding animated. That was the whole point. Rishi had uncovered the secret of government. Any uncomfortable truths could just be airbrushed out of history by an act of parliament. No more would the UK be constrained by reality. If you didn’t like something, you could make a law to suit your own version of events. There was no longer such a thing as truth. Just post-truth. The world really could be how you wanted it to be. It didn’t matter if Rwanda was objectively safe. Only that the government had said it was. That changed everything.
“I see,” said Rajan doubtfully. But what if – just suppose – other legal minds weren’t quite so brilliant and tried to contest the UK version? What if no flights to Rwanda did take off before the election?
Simples. We’d just pass a new law saying that the flights that hadn’t taken off had taken off after all. Then no one would be able to say the government had broken its promise. To tell the truth, he’d been on the verge of bringing peace to the Middle East just before he’d been moved sideways to the Home Office. He’d drawn up a new Treaty, backed up with primary legislation in the UK parliament, that Hamas had promised to no longer exist and for all Israeli hostages to be returned. Blessed be Jimmy Dimly the Peacemaker. Now this was all going to be undone by Lord Big Dave calling for a referendum.
There was only so much of this fantasy that Rajan could take. He moved on to more domestic issues. Like hospitals. When would the 40 new hospitals the Tories had promised be completed?
“Tomorrow,” said Jimmy D confidently.
“What?”
“Absolutely. We will just pass a law saying that the hospitals that haven’t been built have been built after all. We are a government that delivers on its promises. I’m gonna live forever. I’m gonna learn how to fly. I’m gonna make it to heaven. Baby remember my name.”
“I don’t think we’re likely to forget, Mr Dimly. Admit it. You’ve all gone batshit crazy.”
“Certainly not. I think you’ll find there’s a law saying I’m not batshit … ”
At which point a paramedic rushed into the studio and injected Jimmy D with 50mg of liquid valium. Off to find an alternative reality in which his existence was appreciated. Or understood.
John Crace’s book Depraved New World (Guardian Faber, £16.99) is out now. To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy and save 18% at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
A year in Westminster: John Crace and Marina Hyde live in London and online. On Monday 11 December, 8pm-9.30pm GMT, join John Crace, Marina Hyde and Pippa Crerar for a livestream discussion on another year of anarchy in British politics. Book tickets here or via theguardian.live
