I wrote these ~900 words of two-way dialogue a week into the UK's lockdown, when people were waking up to the enormity of the impact the coronavirus pandemic would have on their lives. My son's college life had been turned upside down, years of diligent study replaced with a vague form of in-course assessment. I'd been part of a pandemic planning exercise for a 'flu vaccine manufacturer in 2009 (yes, forewarnings were plentiful), so I was aware of how critical it was to maintain key supply chains to prevent civil collapse. The food manufacturing and logistics industries, together with retail supermarkets, adapted, on the whole, admirably well to the initial behaviour of a sometimes irrational public.
All this contrasted markedly with the government's incompetence, dithering and partisanship on management of protective equipment supplies and airport travel bans, the 'Saving The NHS' oriented hospital discharge policies and 'go-it alone' viral/antibody testing and contact tracing app building efforts. The spectacle of back-room scientists fronting news briefings to explain things that journalists and humanities students couldn't (including, ironically, PPE degree holders), made for some very illuminating television. The rank smell of hypocrisy hadn't yet been noted by Barnard Castle's opticians. So what better way to find release from my frustrations than penning a bit of satire?
“What does this purple button do?” I asked.
“That’s for initiating loss of employment,” the Controller replied.
“For who?” It seemed a fair question, given the current circumstances. I looked him in the eye. He didn’t even blink. These chaps were certainly made of stern stuff. Good. I felt quietly reassured.
“Everyone, sir,” came the unhesitating reply.
I absorbed this word and its ramifications. Slowly. Fair enough, I thought. Of course, the Government would pay up no matter what. It’s what we did nowadays. Especially now there was plenty more cash to help out with these things. At least, my new banking chum told me there was, especially after all those austerity clawbacks the previous chaps did. Nonetheless, I kept my pointing finger well away from it.
My eyes scanned further along the console. The potential here was all so very exciting. “And this green handle on the side?” I enquired.
“That’s for the country’s children to find out what their exam results will have been.”
“Really? How amazing! How does that work? Like a one-armed bandit?” After all, wasn’t life itself a gamble? How apt, I thought.
A grimace flitted across the Controller’s face. “Nothing so obvious, sir. It autodials a special number at their school or college and a holidaying teacher who’s recorded their future path only the evening before tells them. Or they can do it via a chatbot of course – they seem to prefer that. The system we’ve devised bypasses all the kerfuffle with taking exams and having them marked, as well as removing all photographs from August's newspapers of overly attractive students attempting to fly. A positive result all round, we thought.”
I took a moment to take all this wondrousness in. “Well, quite. I mean, who has the energy to celebrate something involving so much hard work? It was bad enough with all those imported gratuitous celebrations and tearful goodbyes at frightful end-of-term proms.”
The Controller nodded sagely in agreement. He knew the scale of the problem. Perhaps more than I did. I’d rather lost count.
Then a vague doubt surfaced from within. “But what about accuracy and… and… truth?” I suppressed an involuntary shudder.
“Indeed. A delicate point you raise, sir. But the Fortune Tellers - as we’ve dubbed them - are required to take a self-assessed teaching module in Unintended Bias. We also recommend a nightly double G'n'T and self-isolation from their students’ parents for fourteen days after they've issued their best guesses. Their mental health and personal safety remains, as always, our top priority.”
“Excellent!” I exclaimed. It was so good to know they had even these little details all worked out.
The Controller looked as if to move away.
I raised my voice an inquiring notch. “Speaking of hard work, where is the button for all of our wonderful community volunteers to post their good deeds for the day? One can’t be underplaying the morale-raising aspects.”
“Ah, yes. That would be the Virtue Signalling device, sir. I couldn’t resist adding a little flourish to this one. It’s that blue button in the middle, with the thumbs-up emoji.” The Controller looked quite pleased with himself.
“An Emo-jai, did you say? How thoroughly modern!” I marvelled at the ingenuity of it all. The back-room boffins must have spent ages developing all of this. Then the serrated bronze dial near the clever thumb captured my interest. It had an elaborate sterling symbol on it. The kind the girlfriend1 drew in her calligraphy classes. I peered closer at it. Numerical figures were arrayed in a clock-like fashion around it. Just like my Hi-Fi at home. But the highest number on this dial was eleven. Curious.
I heard a deep inhalation. “No, no. Let me guess. Is this for my finance stooge to decide how much money we need to print or borrow?” I looked up, hoping for at least a smile from the famously po-faced Controller.
“Er, no, sir. That’s for how much money you want to spend on giving an infected person another decade of life. On average. Given enough doctors and other bits and bobs like business tax breaks. We’ve capped it at a generous eleven million. That’s more than even the Americans.”
I blinked. “Crikey.”
“Quite, sir.”
“But it’s set to only 'one' at the moment.”
“Yes, sir. But that’s still one million pounds.”
“Blimey, do we normally spend that? Even on cancer patients?”
“No, sir, but the fight for both yours and our survival requires extraordinary measures at the current time. We were sure you’d understand…” He tailed off, the implications of doing otherwise – or worse, nothing at all – redolent in the air.
“Yes, of course, of course…” I gazed down at it again, sorely tempted to tweak it clockwise. Just a bit. Nothing too extravagant. The Controller coughed. I put my arm back down.
“So, will there be anything else, Prime Minister?”
“No, no, that will be all for now. Thank you, Controller, for this little tour. Very educational.”
I resisted the urge to push the big red button at the end. The one with the hammer and sickle on it. They were still waiting patiently, of course, but he had only just turned seventy after all2. I could wait a bit longer. Or at least until he'd unwillingly peeled the last piece of toilet paper from his final roll.
