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To the United Kingdom, which did not die, David was a like father. He became as good a Prime Minister and as good a man, as the country had ever known. The country first came to hear of a change in the man just after his first session of Prime Minister’s Questions in the New Year.
David returned to the fray of the debating chamber with the enthusiasm of a young boy returning to a playground after the holidays; filled with a great eagerness to see his friends. On that first day, he strolled into Parliament greeting every person he met of every party and every department with a most amicable handshake and a hearty entreaty for each of them to have a very Happy New Year.
He entered the chamber proper waving to the ministers lining the aisles and took his seat between Brian and Osbo. He fixed Osbo with a great smile and slapped the man on his thigh in friendly greeting. “I’ve got a little surprise this morning” David said. Osbo’s face curled into a subtle smile and he patted his nose with a single finger and nodded as if to acknowledge being let in on the secret.
David stood up and raised his hands to call for silence.
“My Dear Friends” he began. “Can I start by saying what a joy it is to be here today addressing you all at the first PMQs of the year. I would very much like, if you would permit Mr. Speaker, to start the year with a poem.” A number of ministers’ faces crumpled into looks of disinterest but Osbo glanced around all those within his line of sight, nodding enthusiastically.
“The Poem is called ‘Of The Empire’ and it is by the poet Mary Oliver.” He glanced over at John Bercrow, speaker of the house who gave a little shrug and gestured for him to continue.
“Of The Empire”
“We will be known, as a culture that feared death and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity for the few and cared little for the penury of the many.
We will be known as a culture that taught and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke little, if at all about the quality of life for people (other people), for dogs, for rivers.
All the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a commodity. And they will say that this structure was held together politically, which it was, and they will say also that our politics was no more than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of the heart, and that the heart, in those days, was small, and hard, and full of meanness.”
So quiet was the chamber when David had finished that he became very aware for a moment of the strength of his own beating heart.
“No longer will the heart of politics be filled with meanness” David said. “This will be the year that we restore the dignity of kindness back to our great nation.”
Slowly the realisation crept around the chamber that David was in fact not joking. The chamber erupted with great uproarious laughter and heckling and the banging of fists and feet. David glanced again at the speaker of the house who simply raised two upturned palms in reply.
Oh how they laughed to see the alteration in David, and the cries of dissent from the Tory back-benches were hideous and loud! They diagnosed him with every affliction, from Consumption, to Syphilis of the Brain; to try and explain his damascene conversion. But he let them laugh and shout, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough now to know that nothing ever happened in this world, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter and dissent in the outset. That is why it is said that to act with kindness is perhaps the greatest of the acts of faith. For the repercussions for the individual who goes against the grain can sometimes be harsh, and even the effects from the actions of a kind heart are often hidden from plain sight.
Rest assured though that in spite of their jeering, there was not a single individual in the chamber left completely unaffected, even if it was just in the smallest of ways, even it was just by the tiniest blunting of their meanness.
Was it political suicide for a Conservative Prime Minister to suggest a politics based on kindness rather than ideology? Well of course it was. Did the party turn on David, cast him out and appoint a new leader? Of course they did – but so runs the course of many a leaders career anyway and for a change, David was dethroned by kindness rather than his own Hubris.
David had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived in Abstinence, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us!
And so we’ll leave David on that same day, stood at the centre of the palace of Westminster with the maelstrom of the MPs shouts and jeers churning uncontrollably around. David closed his eyes and took a long deep breath and finding all at once a perfect calm in the eye of the storm, he threw his arms in the air and cried: “God bless Us, Every One!”
About the Author
Benedict Joseph Arthur has been a Dickens scholar for many years. His favourite book is, of course, A Christmas Carol.
He also works in the United Kingdom Public Sector. Many of the events in the book are based upon his direct observations of the effects that the policies and ideologies of the current government are having upon people’s lives.
He lives in London with his wife and dog.
If you enjoyed this book, you might be interested in the pre-transformation David’s musings on current events. These can be found on the Christmas Cameron Twitter Feed and Facebook page.
A Christmas Cameron Page 16