From: The Unit
To: GB
Subject: Omnipotence
So, I think you will agree with us when we say, pretty fucking good week. Leadership secured. UK's integrity restored. Nationalists dished. Tories irrelevant-ised. Thatcherism destroyed. Social Democracy enshrined. Greed ended. Blair dwarfed. Nobel Laureateship banked. Legacy ensured. Capitalism rescued. Socialism reborn. World remade. And that's all according to Daily Telegraph editorials. Elsewhere the tone is less carping! The atmosphere here as you know has been transformed. All sorts of reports are flying around, including a story we should stamp on that you were found making love (or committing an act of self-love, according to one rumour) among a selection of comment pieces from Tuesday's papers.
During these heady days our job is to look ahead to the tactical approach for the next period. Two aims stand out: prolong the feel-good factor we are garnering from the coming depression, and head off the backlash when the media get bored with your new role as de facto leader of the Western World.
As far as prolonging the golden glow of this terrible moment, the central aim will be for us to maintain the public's sense of crisis - the conditions under which you are performing so well. What we need to do is make voters aware just how perilous our position is without tipping them over into anger. Bewildered, prone, grateful, confused. This is the position in which the public is, sadly, going to find itself. And we should reap the rewards.
The obvious action to take at this point is, of course, to call an election. But we cannot advise this, due to the fact that it would be cynically exploited by the opposition as a pretext on which to accuse us of cynicism. If we could come up with a compelling reason/form of words for why an election now would not be cynical, that would be brilliant. But pretty sure there isn't one.
Another approach would be to declare the current crisis so grave that you need to formulate a Government of National Unity, and then offer the Tories some humiliating posts, ideally where they will have to announce swingeing cuts in public spending. Cameron could get foreign secretary: send him to Europe a lot. Osborne to mental health.
Of course the trump card the Tories are going to try to hammer us with is the "no more boom and bust" quote. Think the line on this is: We have enjoyed over ten years of a booming economy until the terrible conditions leading to the international bust overwhelmed us. Obviously, boom and bust can only be tamed in times of economic stability. Only an economic novice (could smile here?) like Mr Osborne could suggest otherwise.
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