Fiction: The Fall of Pigglington or The Chronicles of the Great Dejecta Chapter 3

Chapter 3 - Performing

Politics then. That was the answer, the only way that he could become King of the World and be seen as such. Pigglington sat in his room and hatched a plan. The first thing he did was to phone his father and ask him to organise a safe seat. “Somewhere easy to get to from Chelsea, nice people as well, people like us, none of your riff raff, don’t know what diseases you’d get shaking hands with the Great British Unwashed!” His father tried to explain that he probably had to spend some time with the public, even some of the Tory members were working class, but Pigglington had none of it, and in the end settled on a nice Surrey based constituency. The sitting MP had to be persuaded to retire early, and the government agree to call a by-election, but Piggy was certain this would hold no barrier. There was also the little matter of the “interview” where a few local worthies would grill Piggy on such subjects as his attitude to Europe, Law and Order and immigration. The interview panel consisted of a the wife of a retired JP who acted as the chair person, a banker from a hedge fund in the city who spent the entire interview franticly tapping on his phone, and the owner of a local sporting goods retailer. There was also a shadowy figure, apparently from the Conservative Central Office, who occasionally whispered in the ear of the chair. The first few questions focussed on Piggy’s attitudes to the last conservative manifesto, and were quite detailed, which surprised Piggy as needles to say, he had done no preparation for the interview and had not read the manifesto nor even remembered a single policy promise that had been made. Things were not going well, Piggy could tell as the chair womens face was becoming more and more annoyed. At this point the Tory Central Office guy whispered something in the ear of the chair woman and she asked how he felt about Europe in general and specifically the advantages or otherwise of being in “the Common Market” as she called it. Piggy considered for a moment, then tentatively stated that whilst he had all the respect in the world for our European neighbours, having spent many years in Paris as a reporter, he sensed that the French were still bound to their Bonapartist tendency towards autocracy and that the Germans would always be in thrall to their Teutonic authoritarianism, and never really accept the Great British Tradition of fair play and freedom. Piggy noticed that the Chair woman’s face started to soften, the local businessman was nodding quite vigorously and the Banker glanced up from his phone and growled what sounded like “hear hear”. Warming to his theme, Piggy stated that the Italians cared only for what they could eat or have sex with, the Spanish were always on Siesta and “don’t get me started on the Belgians, drunk most of the time when they're not eating moules frites!”. “How do you feel about our permissive societies attitude to crime and punishment generally?” Asked the local businessman. “Well” Piggy replied, all reasonableness “the PC brigade have obviously made it hard to really show these criminal yobbo’s what for”. Eyeing his interrogators to see where their real sympathies lay, Piggy concluded that he had a pretty free reign on this topic. “As an MP in the current climate I couldn’t possibly vocally support the return of the death penalty, much as I would obviously like to. Especially for such crimes as treason, within which I would include threats to her Majesty, threats to her majesties government, and of course anything that disrespects her majesties family, her ministers and anything that represents her, like Marks and Spencers for example. As for troskyist demonstrators and lefty activist lawyers, I suspect that reinstating public birching is too much to ask for!” After much supportive murmuring, the panel welcomed their new candidate and consequently MP for the safe conservative seat of South Ruttingham in the Mire.

Once ensconced in Parliament, Piggy quickly realised that this was exactly like school and Uni. Piggy thought that as the most obviously superior member of the House, it would only be a matter of time before the rest of the party would see that and elect him their leader. The trouble was, Piggy soon realised that those people that liked him also had doubts about his seriousness, commitment and ability. There were also plenty of other people in the party who did not appreciate his roguish charm and who also had doubts about his seriousness, commitment and ability. He had broached the subject of his own greatness and destiny to lead to a few of his colleagues at a drinks party. A few giggled openly, some just turned away and were very focused on their drink glasses and one, his old nemesis from School, Mac Macdonald, who was already a rising star destined to be PM, gave it to him straight. “Piggy”, he stated in a calm but effortlessly superior tone “You’ll never be leader of this great party. Because simply put, you are an Oik, a lazy self centred, over educated, intelligently challenged fraud” He smiled suddenly “but you do tell a good joke, I can see you’ll be useful one day”. Piggy realised then that he needed to create his Brand. He built on the reputation that he was already known for from his weekly columns. Most people assumed he was a right wing free market libertarian who’d be great fun to go for a drink with, even his roguish reputation seemed to be an advantage here. “That Pigglington”, the male tory members would elbow each other “just the sort of young buck to help us win, although I wouldn’t want to leave him alone with my wife” they would laughingly add winking at each other “such a Legend!”. And just like at school, he started to create a small group of loyal sycophants and hangers on. To be fair they were a fairly unimpressive group, blighted by halitosis and bad skin, and altogether a sense of yearning for a messianic figure to help lead them to some sort of English Nationalist nirvana, something they saw in Pigglington, who made all the right noises. “You know” he would say with a conspiratorial smirk “if it wasn’t for the snowflake Right-on wokery…” tap his nose knowingly and leave it at that. This was especially exciting for this group of men who were mostly middle aged former middle managers in middling accounting firms who had never had any real taste of power and genuinely felt the possibility when being close to Piggy. Especially when he started whispering about the usual red meat stuff, how he supported bringing back the birch and the rope, reintroducing Imperial Measures by force of law, tough penalties for blasphemy and sedition, introducing a Margaret Thatcher Day holiday, bringing back the Gold Standard and the Poor Laws. Needless to say, Piggy did not believe any of these things, understood almost nothing about them and could care less about their impacts, except in how they managed to build his reputation amongst the Tory MP’s. Whenever he walked past one of the important back benchers, or a member of a parliamentary committee he thought he needed to impress he took to tapping them on the shoulder, or winking at them knowingly and saying cryptically “Bloody Frogs” or “Damn Trots” or “Poofs” followed by a knowing smile before rushing off as if he had somewhere important to be. This way he was able to build a reputation of both someone in the know, as well as a valuable outsider, not part of the establishment but one of them, without ever having to actually explain or articulate any point of view. This technique proved remarkably successful, and he was soon promoted to a cabinet position where he managed to maintain the illusion of success and popularity, mainly by assiduously not doing anything remotely productive. He did nonetheless, manage to convince the drooling sycophants that he was achieving a significant amount behind the scenes, furthering whatever agenda the people he was talking to cared about. “You know we’re doing what we can” he would say “despite the civil service blob and the wets”. He then would tap his nose and whisper “keep your eyes open, it will all be happening soon” and no matter that he never had to explain what “it” was, the people he spoke to assumed Piggy had their interests at heart. “That Pigglington is one of us” they would say to each other “but he has to play the game. Wait till he gets the top job, then you’ll see what we can really achieve” Actually his career as a cabinet minister wasn’t completely without achievement. He managed to insult almost all our international partners with various off the cuff and unscripted remarks, almost started a trade war with Europe by suggesting that most French cheese was a result of the habit of the cheesemakers, mostly woman, not shaving their armpits, and that the majority of Germans preferred a Gregs Steakbake to their over flavoured Wurst. He also was overheard suggesting that most Nurses either were lovely totty just waiting for a hunky doctor to sweep them out of the profession, or so unattractive that this was the only role they could find. When he was confronted with this on a Sunday Morning talk show, he was taken aback for a split second, then adopted the approach that had worked so well for him in the past. He smirked a little, glanced to one side as if to say to someone just off camera “what a trivial and irrelevant question”, then muttering something almost inaudible along the lines of “look I think the viewers would be more interested in what we are doing about flattening the pancake of equality”. When the interviewer asked again what he meant by his comments, he came up with what is now his defining approach to criticism, attempting to turn his comments on their head. “Look” he said all reasonableness “I was pointing out that the Nursing Professional bodies really need to focus on ensuring the profession is viewed effectively and attracts the best quality totty..I mean candidates possible! In fact all this talk of it actually being a profession is just filling their pretty little heads with unachievable goals!”. Soon after this, the various Nursing bodies threatened to go on strike unless Piggy was disciplined, his sycophants started appearing on chat shows, and writing articles, and asking question in the House along the lines of “When will the Royal College of Nursing stop playing politics and realise that Nursing is not as important as doctoring and its only the militant Nursing union barons that are raising expectations that Nurses should be paid as much as, lets say policemen or having a full time career”.

This was typical of what became known as the Pigglington Forming years, where he moved from one Cabinet post to another, and in each finding himself with a greater number of acolytes and supporters, a record of little to no achievements and a reputation for getting things done built on almost nothing except a vague sense of things going on in the background somewhere. In each post he managed to cause as many problems for the PM as he could, and always seem to slither out of any real blame or consequence. Why he kept getting promoted was a mystery to everyone except the PM Himself, Mac Macdonald, who had been reminded in no uncertain terms that Piggy had many incriminating stories and hinted at photographic evidence of Mac’s somewhat boisterous shenanigans both at school and university involving a number of Digestive Biscuits, some farmyard animals and a waitresses sworn affidavit.

Eventually the PM tired of clearing up Piggys messes and decided that he had done enough service for the people. He stepped down to concentrate on his family, or at least his family fortune, with a lucrative consultancy with his uncles concrete manufacturers, MacDonald and Tassioni plc. Piggy of course threw his hat in the ring and despite his careful cultivating of the sychophants on the back benches, initially things were not going so well. His lack of seriousness, his gaffs and a few editorials in various Tory papers decrying his non-Tory ideas such as spending tax payers money on such things as a new Concord airplane for Government use, seemed to damn his chances. Piggy realised he needed a new technique for winning over the Tory party and also the general public. The quiet wink wink style gnomic utterances that had served him well so far did not really work in front of large audiences, especially for things like televised debates. He was also a remarkably poor speaker especially when being challenged or even just being asked questions. He would generally lose his place, forget what the point he was making and drift off into anecdotes about things that no-one understood. He started communicating almost exclusively using sound effects rather than words. “What are you policies to help drive the economy forward” he was asked “Vroom Vroom!” he replied, moving his arms like a piston on a stream train. “Plans for education?” “Click Click Click, Grammar schools!” he would say imitating lego bricks being put together. “Imigration?” “Whoosh!” he would say gesturing a sweeping motion with his arms followed by flushing a toilet motion “Swish”. This approach garnered much ridicule, but did start to win over the majority of Tory Members and consequently MP’s started to row in behind Team Piggy. When the vote came, Piggy won more than 50% of the membership and was duly elected leader and PM.

As he ensconced himself into No 10, he pondered what he should actually do. Becoming PM was the main reason he had done all this, actually being PM seemed rather boring. He was confronted with a pinch faced civil servant, someone called Sir Whatsit Chomendally or something, who handed over 3 large red boxes filled with important papers and things he needed to get done. “What the hell am I supposed to do with these?” he asked “You head the government,” Chomendally replied “ Govern!”. Piggy thanked the Civil Servant, dismissed him and turned to his newly appointed private secretary, Spittle McFuck who he’d bribed to join him with a pay packet twice as big as the most senior civil servant. “Make sure that man never sets foot in this office again” He said, and having dealt with that problem he went on “So what should we really do?”. “Well you prick, first of all you need to keep all this slavering sycophants who support you with jobs like you promised them, and all your enemies in the tent pissing out !” “But there can’t be that many cabinet posts can there?” “Then make up some fucking new ones, you’re the fucking prime minister, you fucking idiot!”

So his first action was creating a whole new set of government ministries to reward his supporters and nullify his opponents. He realised, for instance, that he could split the Home office into at least four separate ministries, the Home Service, the Ministry for Ladies Affairs, The Ministry for Gentlemens Affairs, and the Ministry for General Affairs not covered by other ministries. He continued in this vein with other departments until he had created as many cabinet posts equal to approximately half the tory MP’s. He realised quickly that this would be a problem in managing cabinet meetings of this number of ministers, so he then set up a series of oversight departments, so for instance the four new ministries that had previously made up the Home Office, were combined under a single senior cabinet minister who was called “The Home Secretary”. After a bit more thinking he had created a set of 8 senior cabinet posts and these he assigned to his most loyal supporters, or his most vocal opponents.

Once he had spent the entire morning on this he was exhausted. He immediately organised a short spot of R&R in one of his donors luxury Caribbean islands. “You should travel there in the government jet, call it an overseas goodwill and trade visit” he said to his newly appointed Trade Secretary (who was also in charge of Rural Affairs, Urban Affairs, General Affairs and also happened to be one of Piggy’s former affairs). “What about you, aren’t you going as well?” she asked “Oh, I’ll take the private jet the donor has lent me, if asked I’ll say it is saving tax payers hard earned cash”. And so the period many still call the Golden Age of Pigglington started. In the next few months, he set a frenetic pace rattling through his agenda, which mainly consisted of getting his acolytes or ministers to reorganise their departments and lay off significant numbers of Civil Servants. When challenged by various television interviewers and broadcast journalists how this helped the country as a whole, and when he was going to introduce policies that actually addressed the real issues of the country, Piggy tried falling back on his usual approach “Vroooooom!” he said slightly too loudly followed by a bit of muttering under his breath, eyes glancing off camera and stating some Latin sounding nonsense “Caveat Emperor miscelania!” He found that this was not really working effectively as the interviewer would press him again on explaining how any of this helped people’s real lives. “Well something has to be done, you can’t let this bloated state continue as is, so what would you have me do?” “Tax Payers!” he would shout over any further questions. After this, he refused to be interviewed by anyone and just got Spittle to record him saying bland nothings and releasing these to the press.

Soon however, as the issues facing the country started to get worse and it was clear that Piggy and his government had no way of handling the increasing number of challenges and the opinion polls turning decisively against the Tories. Piggy convened a special off-site meeting to discuss what should be done. The fact that the 2 day binge was being held in a luxury spa hotel in Hampshire and the agenda (which was inevitably leaked) showed that there were only 2 business sessions scheduled for 1 hour each and the rest of the time was called Spa Based Recuperation and brainstorming sessions in the Bar, did not help the general mood of the country. Nonetheless, the outcomes were presented as a series of winning ideas to address the countries problems. Piggy called a press conference immediately to present what he called a Manifesto for Mending Broken Britain. The fact that the cameras picked up sounds of partying in the background and there were empty bottles of champagne around the room, and also that Piggy was clearly the worse for wear, lead to the first few questions being about whether the cabinet had been partying when the rest of the country was suffering for economic hardship. Piggy had prepared an answer to that question “Well, we had been working incredibly hard conducting the business of government and delivering the peoples priorities that who can deny us a few drinks after work to relax” When it was pointed out that most of the country were also working incredibly hard, often working multiple jobs, just to be able to afford the water coming out of their taps let alone a few drinks, Piggy spluttered a few words about how the press were determined to do the country down, declared the press conference over, had Spittle hand out the Manifesto instead of actually presenting it, and wandered off stage muttering “Cornflakus Levitatus!” The manifesto itself consisted of one sheet of A4 paper with 3 bullet points and a few sub bullets.

• Law and Order (To ensure we provide the Police Force with necessary powers to enforce the law)

  • Rename the Police Service the Police Force

  • Routinely Arm the Police

  • Provide Tasers to other elements of the Law and Order community such as Traffic Wardens, and private Security Guards

• Immigration (To ensure we focus our precious resources on those that both need and deserve them the most)

  • Remove all benefits from immigrants until they become full UK citizens

  • Remove benefits from children of immigrants even if they were born in the UK

  • Deploy the Royal Navy to deter and if necessary intercept small boats in the channel. Lethal force can be used at the discretion of the Captain.

• Economy (To provide the fairest and most successful financial future possible. Levelling the tax burden across the economy, why should the hard working wealthy always be expected to pay for the slovenly and feckless who can’t be bothered to earn as much)

  • Reduce Tax burden on ordinary people by lowering the upper rate of Tax from 40% to 15%

  • Introducing a starter rate of tax for people earning under 15k a year (including benefit claimants) of 10%

  • Increasing VAT to 25%

  • Entrance fees for Parks, Libraries, bridges and some streets

That was it. Whilst this was red meat and attractive to a few, the vast majority of the people, as shown by opinion polls, were rapidly turning against the party and Piggy in particular. In fact there was talk of a general strike and a weekly march through London, which was attended by more than a million people each week. Whilst Spittle had threatened the various news outlets to stop reporting on the unrest in the country as a whole, even the BBC had to admit that more than a few thousand people were actively opposing the government every week. Things were looking bad for Piggy and his team, so in time honoured fashion, he decided to act. A pre-recorded televised address was rapidly prepared. “Fellow citizens” Piggy started “We have listened to the people, and will act decisively to address their concerns” What these actions would be was never explained, and as members of the cabinet when asked on the few television programs they still appeared on what the decisive actions would be, they would reply with certainty “The PM has already addressed this” when pushed they would all say “Decisive actions will be introduced so that we can act decisively to address these issue in a decisive and action oriented manner”. Piggy meanwhile had decisively taken another holiday on a different donors luxury apartment in California. “The PM is on an urgent and critical trade visit to our oldest partners” the foreign secretary answered when asked where Piggy was. When it was pointed out that Piggy had met with no-one from the US government, nor had he been accompanied by either the Foreign Secretary nor the International Trade secretary or that he had slipped his security detail and had been filmed in a nightclub apparently posing with a rolled up 10 dollar bill in front of what looked suspiciously like some lines of cocaine, the Foreign Secretary said this was clearly not the PM, and even if it was him, he was not breaking any laws, and even if he was it was inadvertant so did not really matter. And anyway “why do you always insist on talking down out great country by repeating this trivial tittle-tattle. No body does more to ensure the rule of law is maintained than Mr Pigglington. He is truly a great and magnificent presence, we are lucky to have him as PM” With that all televised interviews with all member of the cabinet stopped.

When Piggy returned, being driven through the crowds of demonstrators on the streets of London, he turned to his travelling companion, a woman whose name he couldn’t remember but someone he had apparently offered a senior advisor role, “who the hell do these crusty tree huggers and trotskyist proto-Blairites think they are, don’t they know who runs this bloody country? What we need is a decisive decision to decisively wipe these scum from the street! We’ll have a general election and because everyone loves me so much I will win by a landslide and be able to set the police to shoot these unwashed hippies. That’ll show ‘em!”

“You can’t have a fucking election, you idiot” Spittle informed him later in the cabinet room “You’ll fucking lose by a fucking landslide” “Why don’t they realise how much they need me!” Piggy moaned “Why should these idiots who don’t want to vote for me even have the right to vote, it’s not fair!” “Well…” Spittle started “its always possible to adjust things ever so slightly to make things a little easier”. “Do go on” Piggy responded excitedly. So with Spittle’s ideas and some driving from the more compliant members of the cabinet, Piggy introduced his Superior Reform Act. This, Piggy explained in a pre-recorded televised speech, addressed the real and significant problem of voter fraud, electoral dissatisfaction, and fairness in the system. To put it simply, the government is elected by the people, so therefore whatever the government does is done at the behest of the people. Therefore, it stands to reason if someone does not like or support the government, they are working against the will of the people and are therefore by any token anti democratic, and if they actually took that opposition to the government further, say demonstrating in the streets, then they were almost certainly guilty of treason. He therefore, and with much regret, had been forced to introduce a new law of Treasonous Assembly to address the problem of disruptive demonstrations, and one of Sedition to prevent people deliberately undermining the will of the people. This would apply to anyone who actively campaigned against the duly elected government, including but no limited to Union Activists, Left Wing Pressure Groups, Radical Lawyers, Judges, priests and of course members of opposition parties “It’s time these people stopped playing politics with Politics!” he explained. Realising that some people may find these new laws fairly extreme, there would be a transitional period, where custodial sentences would only be used for the most heinous infringements of the laws, most people who were found to be guilty of breaches would simply have their voting rights suspended for a period of time, say 10 years. “Its just that if people refuse to abide by the democratic will of the people then they abandon the right to partake in the democratic process!” as Piggy explained. He also explained that because the Woke Judiciary could not be trusted either, the judgement of who was in breach of these new laws would be left to the Police Force in that area, “Senior Officers would make the call, obviously, Detective Sergeant and above”.

There were some mutterings on his own backbencher about these apparently Draconian laws, but the majority of Tory MP’s, mostly directly involved in the government, were able to pass these laws in a very short time frame. Once passed things moved very fast. Seeing as the Opposition parties were by their nature, opposing the government, they were immediately in breach of the law and had their voting rights removed. Also, as Piggy explained in another pre-recorded televised address, he would call a general election to decide once and for all who ran the country, the Democratically elected government, or the mob, but seeing as how anyone who voted against the government would by that very action in breach of the law, it seemed a little profligate to waste the tax payers hard earned money on an election that would have been a foregone conclusion. He therefore declared the election won by him and his party for another 5 year term, and to be honest there seemed little point in holding another election in 5 years seeing as the outcome would be exactly the same.

Piggy, as he looked out at the great works he had achieved in such a short period of time, felt able to start relaxing at last. Here he was, king of the world, or at least as much of the world as he cared about, as he had known all along he would be. “Shit” Spittle rushed in to tell him “You fucking idiot you forgot a key item, prick!” “‘What?” “Someone from the party is challenging you” “What, arrest him then” “Its a her, and you can’t, they’re part of the government as well!” “Don’t worry” Piggy assured him “ My party loves me, I am the best thing that has ever happened to them, they would never move against me!”

But they had, the ungrateful bastards. How had he missed Tessa Fluffington, he pondered. She was one of his most ardent admirers he had thought, she had followed his every lead and had supported him through thick and thin. She was, he thought, probably a little in love with him, and he had made her Home Secretary. Well who can blame her, a man with his excessive charm, aura of imminent deification and fulsome carriage, what totty could ever resist. Not that he would have called Tessa totty as such, she was too old, too thin and altogether unattractive to be considered real totty. In fact he probably made finger down the throat gestures when she left the room and held his nose theatrically, wafting his other hand in front of his face as if to get rid of a bad smell when she was about to talk to him in cabinet. Still, it was just banter, so that can’t really explain how she managed to stab him in the back quite so effectively. One minute there he was on top of the world he surveyed, then next she had managed to persuade the majority of his party, that he had achieved all he ever could and now was the time for some real ideas, some real conservatism. She even managed to persuade Spittle to go over “She’s actually got some ideas that revolve around something other than the end of your cock!” he explained “Well I’m not going anywhere” Piggy retorted “They’ll have to drag my cold dead body out of here before I give up so easily” “Seriously you fat fucking fuck, you think that couldn’t be arranged” Spittle informed him “your fucking finished, so fuck off and fester under the nearest rock you tosser!” Piggy felt himself well up, how could they all be so ungrateful, its so unfair! “Look, go quietly, and you’ll be looked after, a small stipend and the thanks of a grateful party ringing in your ears”.

That was that, all Piggy had left now was the reverie of cheap whiskey and mad schemes for a dramatic return. But he knew there was no real way back for him. He had removed all chances of standing as an independent candidate in a future election, as he’d seen to it that there were no longer elections. Fluffington could do pretty much as she pleased and if he did stand against her, he would be in breach of the very laws he had got introduced in the first place. He had not even managed to secure any real funds for his retirement and was reliant on the after dinner speaking circuit to supplement his relatively speaking mediocre pension. So he spent his days sitting, drinking, scheming and raging against the unfairness of it all. He, a bona fide superman, and colossus, bought so low. It just wasn’t fair. The final humiliation, he knew, was the imminent arrival of an unauthorised biography entitled “The Great Dejecta, the rise and fall of Pigglington, a story of trivia and ephemera made flesh”. With that thought ringing around his head, he poured himself another cheap whisky.