Charlie Bluster becomes Prime Minister

A side-splitting, toilet flushing, kung-fu ballet dancing, political epic adventure story.

For Adults and Children of 10 years +

Chapter 1

The British Prime Minister

Wielding the Powers of Fate and the forbidden Force of Marketing Charlie Bluster was unstoppable!

Universally adored, he was more popular than Little Girls from Sweden, Prime Ministers with Outrageous Haircuts and American Princesses all combined.

The contact list on his phone was crammed with Hollywood celebrities and world leaders. He kept the Queen of England, the Pope and even Dave Lister on speed dial!

By the time he had reached the age of thirteen, he was already Time Magazine Person of the Year, a Knight of the British Empire and an honourary member of the Hazzard County Moonshine Club.

At the age of fourteen, he announced his intention to run for the position of British Prime Minister. The newspapers had a field day and all the television channels were full of programmes and articles about Charlie Bluster.

Parliament held an emergency session to discuss the crisis.

“Now I hope we are all agreed,” said the current Prime Minister, “that fourteen-year-old boys are absolutely not allowed to run for office. We’ll make an official statement to say that this Charlie Bluster is not eligible.”

“But he’s just the cutest little boy,” declared Miss Jack, Minister for the Interior. She pointed at the PM, “and he would look so much better than you do on TV.”

A roar of agreement erupted from both the back and forward benches at the same time.

“Oooh and I accidentally ran into him last week,” said Mr Jones, Minister for the Exterior. “He is the nicest boy you could ever hope to meet. What’s more, he promised that I would be promoted to Chancellor of the Exchequer when he becomes Prime Minister. Such a wonderful, wonderful child.”

The current Chancellor of the Exchequer looked extremely displeased. He immediately raised a motion to have the Minister for the Exterior covered in Cold Custard however it was quickly voted down as nobody really liked the Chancellor.

The Speaker of the House took charge in order to quell the disruption.

“Order, order!” he demanded, bashing the table. “Calm down everyone. The question is what qualifications does the boy have? We certainly can’t let an untrained, ignorant child into the government!”

Silence descended across the House and all the MPs shrank down in their seats and buried their heads in their notebooks.

“I assume everyone here actually has a qualification?” asked the Speaker, getting his red pencil ready to write names in the Parliamentary Naughty Book. “Please raise your hand if you have a qualification.”

All of the hands shot up immediately causing the mood to relax.

“Excuse me, Mr Speaker,” interrupted the Leader of the Opposition, “but according to the Rules, the Blue Peter Badge isn’t counted as a qualification.”

The hands all came back down again just as quickly as they had gone up.

In the end, the Prime Minister’s suggestion was dismissed. If Charlie Bluster wanted to run for office then he would be allowed.

It would be decided on the hustings!

*

Sir Gerald Oswestry Rottenborough, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, left the Chamber at high speed and immediately made a break for his secret toilet.

The PM liked the toilet, it was the one place where other people couldn’t follow you and you could actually get a bit of peace and quiet to clear your head.

It was for this very reason that he spent a lot of time there and had, therefore, made several useful upgrades. The first thing he had done was to install a widescreen TV just above the door. This was closely followed by the latest video game console, with special compartments built into the side of the toilet bowl to contain the controllers.

The toilet roll holder was made out of solid gold and dispensed the softest and velvetiest toilet paper known to man.

The stuff was actually imported from Kashmir and manufactured by the people who made the rugs.

They also made the toilet seat out of the same material to protect against Prime Ministerial Toilet Ring, (if the PM spent too long playing games while on the loo).

The toilet itself was an original Crapper and was a work of genius!

There was no loo brush, instead, a set of windscreen wipers had been installed inside the bowl that automatically cleaned the toilet on each flush. And, should there be any gas escape from the Prime Ministerial Behind then lavender-scented oxygen, bottled at the very summit of Mount Everest, would automatically be pumped in.

Several telephones were attached to the wall within easy reach. There were no buttons for dialling, instead, each one automatically connected the PM to important people within the country in case of an emergency. The purple phone went straight to Her Majesty the Queen at Buckingham Palace, the blue phone connected to the head of the secret service at MI6, and most importantly of all, the red bat-phone put him in immediate contact with Dominoes, where a double pepperoni would be ready on standby twenty-four-seven to go into the oven.

With the pizza delivery hatch on one wall, a letterbox in the door for urgent correspondences and a pipe that delivered constant cola on demand, the PM could govern the entire of Great Britain from inside the bog for at least a full week,

(the current record was four days when he bunked off the Brexit conference and everyone thought he was in a top-secret meeting).

Finally, the whole thing was voice-controlled meaning that the bog could be flushed from anywhere in the world that had an internet connection, (in the case of a blocker).

*

Reaching the safety of the toilet the PM dashed inside and triple-locked the door. Pulling down his trousers he jumped up onto the throne and reached immediately for the red phone while he collected his thoughts.

This wasn’t over yet, there was no way that the public would vote for a little boy who didn’t know the first thing about running the country. Instead, this would be even easier than the last election. All he had to do was show everyone how awesome he was and the many wonderful things he and his government had done for the country.

The pizza delivery hatch opened and the emergency pepperoni was shoved through. The PM pulled out the largest slice and munching thoughtfully turned on the screen. He commanded the electronic Home Assistant, Stella, to display his list of Election Promises.

“The list of election promises is only available with Politics Unlimited,” replied Stella, “would you like to upgrade your subscription for the special trial price of ten pounds per month?”

“Underpants!” he exclaimed.

How could this have happened, surely he had viewed his election promises before now? No matter, this was an emergency. Taking another slice, he agreed to the ridiculous terms and Stella brought up the list of promises.

Promise one - don’t tell any lies!

That was an easy one, when did he ever tell lies? He was as honest as the day was long!

“Stella, how many lies have I told since being elected Prime Minister?” he commanded confidently.

“Two thousand three hundred and seventeen lies …,” replied Stella with just as much confidence.

“Underpants!” roared the PM.

“… have been recorded today,” finished Stella. “The current time is three forty-five in the afternoon. The last lie was registered at three fourteen when you told the Minister for the Interior that you liked her new hairstyle.”

“Oh that doesn’t count, I was just being nice. Everyone knows it looks like a pair of Mating Peregrine Falcons have built their nest on top of her bonce!”

“The next lie was recorded at three twelve,” said Stella ploughing on, “when you said that you hadn’t raised taxes.”

“But I haven’t raised taxes,” protested the PM, (who due to the severity of the situation was forced to sandwich two slices of pizza together at the same time).

Thinking quickly, he picked up the blue phone and was connected to the head of the secret service.

“Frank, quick question. When was the last time we raised taxes?

“Don’t you remember?” replied Frank, chief of MI6, “it was last Thursday. You slapped that stealth tax on all the bakeries because the doughnut shop short-changed you at the counter!”

“Underpants!” yelled the PM for a third time slamming down the phone.

Maybe promise number two would be better he thought, scrolling down on the screen.

Promise two - lower taxes.

DOH! The PM slapped himself on the forehead and was forced to play two whole levels on the games console in order to recover his composure.

“Stella, how many taxes have we raised this year?” he asked in desperation.

Stella didn’t waste any time. “This year there have been five hundred and …”

“Stella stop!” yelled the PM.

“… Sixty …”

“STELLA STOP!, (stupid machine).

“… Three,” finished Stella, (stupid politician).

The PM tried again, “Stella, how many taxes have we lowered this year?” he asked in a pleading tone of voice.

“This year one tax has been lowered,” replied Stella slightly more sympathetically.

Aha, that’s something, perhaps promise two might not be completely scuppered after all.

“Stella, what tax has been lowered?”

“This year the tax on Prime Ministers has been lowered by ninety-seven per cent,” stated Stella sarcastically.

The PM returned to the screen and frantically scrolled down to the last election promise.

Promise three - more doughnuts for everyone.

Well, this third promise was something, what better way to make voters happy than stuffing them all full of double chocolate doughnuts?

“Stella, how many people in England had a doughnut last week?” asked the PM.

“Twenty thousand chocolate doughnuts were eaten last week …,” started Stella

“Phew,” thought the PM, “that’s more like it.”

“… By members of Parliament,” finished Stella. “Since the introduction of the new bakery tax last Thursday, doughnuts are now only affordable by the super-rich.”

The PM had had enough! In total desperation he reached for the red bat phone again, it would have to be decided on the hustings after all!

Chapter 2

The Search for Votes

In advance of the election, Charlie Bluster toured the country meeting people, kissing small babies, and opening important facilities like nuclear reactors and pickled onion factories.

He was accompanied everywhere by his best friends Katie and Jaden. Mrs Higgensworth had decided that Charlie needed someone to look after him properly and packing in her old job at the Norphanage had hit the road as well.

Her handbag was stuffed to bursting with all sorts of useful ointments, medicines, hankies, spare sandwiches, power tools and de-lousing kits, (you never know when you’ll need one).

The gold spikes on the outside of her handbag had been filed to razor sharpness, ready to deal out maximum punishment in case some crazy fool should try to take advantage of her poor little Charlie.

Before embarking on their campaign, they all met together to decide what promises and lies they would make to convince the public to vote for Charlie.

Katie was busy making the election posters and had already produced a massive stack of brightly coloured boards. Each one held a picture of Charlie Bluster and the words Vote for Charlie, the Nation’s Favourite.

.........

Copyright © Graeme Clarke 2022, edition 2.1

All rights reserved.

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This book is entirely a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters, except for some well-known historical figures, are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Free images from Pexels, Pixabay, Unsplash and Vecteezy have been used in the creation of the cover.

We would like to thank: Amar Saleem, Clker-Free-Vector-Images, yazid kun, NikkOO, and Aaron Burden.