David Cameron and his Ministry of Bread and Circuses hope to cheer up the populace with the London Olympics and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.
It won't work for me. But I am up for celebration of the Charles Dickens bicentennial. What better way to mark a year which promises Dickensian grinding poverty and exploitation?
My suggestion (and please laugh if you want to) is that Mr Cameron and his Coalition Cabinet colleagues become travelling players. Mr Cameron's troupe will tour a selection of the great man's works in the Dickens of a Year Festival. The Cabinet might as well tread the boards. They do not contribute much in their day jobs.
The first production will feature the Deputy Prime Minister in the almost eponymous Life and Adventures of Nicholas Cleggleby. The story of a young Lib-Dem who has fallen on hard times and seeks advancement by allying himself with the Conservative Party. His first job is to work alongside education secretary Wackford Squeers, privatising state schools into Dotheboys Hall franchises. Michael Gove does not quite fit the Squeers role of a one-eyed tyrant who is violent towards his young charges. But he will do until someone nastier turns up.
Which Lib-Dem will play the part of Newman Noggs, the kindly clerk whose fortunes were dissipated by a fondness for strong drink? A character of whom Dickens says: "The countenance of Newman Noggs, in his ordinary moods, was a problem which no stretch of ingenuity could solve." Did I hear someone suggest Charles Kennedy? This would work since Noggs is a decent chap who turns up trumps in the end.
There is no shortage of Tory grandees to play disreputable nobleman Sir Mulberry Hawk and his foppish friend Lord Frederick Verisopht. Mr Cameron and his accomplice George Osborne are ideal for Mr Pluck and Mr Pyke, the sly and dapper duo who do Sir Mulberry Hawk's dirty work.
There will be competition among captains of industry to play twin brothers Charles and Ned Cheeryble, magnanimous merchants who take Nicholas Cleggleby under their wing and bring about a happy ending.
The happy ending does not involve Nicholas becoming prime minister. He leaves politics for a top job in the Cheerybles conglomerate. Look out for Danny Alexander as Oliver Twist and Vince Cable as Abel Magwitch in Great Expectations.
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