A Christmas at Cameron’s Warehouse with apologies to Dicken’s.

“Plan-A my boys!” said crimson Cameron. “No more work to-night! Christmas Eve, Cleggy! Christmas, Gideon! Let’s have the bedroom tax up!” cried Cameron with a sharp slap of his hands on Nadine, “before May can say Abu Qatada. . . .”

“Plan-A!” cried Cameron, skipping down from the dispatch box with wonderful duplicity. “Privatise away, my lads, and let’s have lots of money here! Plan-A, Cable! Swear away, Mitchell!”

Privatise away! There was nothing they wouldn’t have privatised, or couldn’t have privatised with old Thatcher looking up. It was done in a minute. Every company was packed off, as if it were dismissed from public life forevermore; the Royal Mail was swept away and posted abroad, the Probation Service was trimmed, the NHS was gradually heaped upon the fire; and the MPs house was as snug, and warm, and dry, and bright as unlimited expenses could desire on a winter’s night.   

In came fiddler Alexander with the Orange book, and went up to the dispatch box and made Tory policy out of it turning the pages like fifty stomach aches. In came Mrs. Cameron, one vast fixed smile. In came the three Chairmen; Shapps, Green and Fox, looking scheming and unlovable. In came the last six LibDem followers whose hearts they broke. In came all the young Tories and  the token women employed in the business. In came courting couple Rebekah and Andy. In came William which surprised everyone as they vaguely hoped they’d got rid of him. In came the little girl they thought they left in the Pub. In came the ex chief whip with three policemen. In came Huhne with Brucie thinking points get prizes. In came Jeremy the little boy from over the way, who was suspected of not having brains enough for his master, trying to hide himself behind a tree next door but was once proved to have had lied for Uncle Rupert. In came Maria the Miller’s daughter redundant as a Royal Charter. In came the rejected IDS but to their rare, but late, universal credit they all thought him not very bright.  In came Gove who thought himself an unqualified success. In came Paterson in his best badger hat. In came Pickles and Soames and the feast was soon devoured. In they all came, any-how and Geoffrey Howe. Away they all went, everyone coupled with a banker in hand.  Half round and back again the other way; down the middle way and up right again; round and round in various stages of zero growth. Affectionate groping, old Tory couples always turning up in the wrong place; new Tory couples starting off again, as soon as they got there; all Tory couples at last, and from the bottom not a poor, disabled, unemployed, immigrant, teacher, nurse or badger amongst them.

When the 2010 result was brought about the fiddler struck up “We’re All in it Together.” Then Cameron stood out to dance with Mrs. Cameron. Tory couple, too, with a good stuffing of pasties cut out for them by hard-working people; three or four and twenty pairs of business partners; people who were not to be trifled with; people who would cut a dance, or anything else, on your grave and had no notion of walking.

But if they had been thrice as manly, oh, four times as manly, Cameron would have been a match for them, and so would Ms. Mensch. As to her, she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term. If that’s not low praise, tell me lower and I’ll use it. A negative light appeared to issue from Mensch’s calves. They clouded every part of the dance like an eclipse. You couldn’t have predicted at any given time what would become of them next.

And when Cameron and Mrs. Cameron had gone all through the dance, advanced retirement age; both hands to your partner, bow and courtesy, screwing, needling, and back again to your homeland; Cameron cut so deafly that he appeared to wink with his bottom, and came upon his feet again with a swagger.

When the clock struck midnight the domestic balance of payments broke up. Mr. and Mrs. Cameron took our stations (and everything else they could take), one on either side of the door, and shaking down every person individually, as he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas!.