Lordy Lordy - Development

I was woken by Box, my parliamentary assistant, with my breakfast tray.

"Your coffee, my lord, your tray of toast and toast adornments, the morning papers opened at the gossipy sections, and a petition."

"I don't sign petitions Box, I'm a peer of the realm. If I want to change anything I arrange an expensive lunch with the minister concerned."

"The petition isn't for you to sign, it's for you to read, it's addressed to you."

"What does it say?"

"It's from the local villagers. It says that the old battlements at the west of the house are a danger to the village and call on you to initiate repairs."

"This is impressive Box, there are over 25,000 signatories."

"It is quite a persuasive number, my lord."

"And yet there are only 140 people in the village. It's almost as if some of these names were made up. Hitler, I'm pretty sure he's not living in the village at the moment, neither is Napoleon, and look at this, Dr Welpcutlet, an obvious made up name."

"Dr Welpcutlet is actually the local vetinarian."

"Well real or not, they're entirely misinformed. Those battlements are hundreds of years old, my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather build those to keep out the local villagers."

"You won't be responding to the petition, my lord?"

"Not unless the petition comes with a donation for the £150,000 I was quoted to make the battlements safe. Until we can grow a magic money tree in the grounds, we will all have to live with the danger and excitement of unsafe battlements."

"Very good my lord."

"What's the business in parliament today, Box?"

"I've received a note from Lord Norris, the Chief Whip. He'd like to see you in his office."

"I hope I've done nothing wrong. Fall foul of the Chief Whip and Finance suddenly start querying your expenses. Lord Truscott made the mistake of insulting Norris' wife and he had his claim for £50,000 for the upkeep of his maze returned unpaid. His maze is so overgrown now you can't get in or out of it and at least two of his wives have been lost to the maze in the last three years."

"I'm sure it's just a friendly talk about the good work you're doing, my lord."

"Why does that make me more worried that I was."

It was with some trepidation that I knocked three times on the Chief Whip's office later that morning.

"Ah, Lord Lord, good to see you. You know all about PM's Vanity Rail Project of course. I see you backed the Bill, eventually."

"Subject to a minor amendment. Our role is to improve legislation where possible."

"I don't know if you've heard but there's a bit of a problem with the rollout of the project."

"What is it, environmentalists blocking construction?"

"No, a bit more serious than that. You know 'project fear' that was claiming that the Vanity Rail Project would use up the entire budget for new transport developments for the next twenty years.  Well, the funny thing is they were absolutely right."

"I can see that that's a problem."

"No, that isn't the problem. The problem is that the transport minister gave the contract for the project to one of his old Eton colleagues, who has seemingly taken the money and done a runner."

"Seemingly?"

"We forgot to ask him to sign for the money when we gave it to him. We're £150 bilion down and we don't even have a receipt. Jolly bad show, he'd done exactly the same thing with the budget for the school play apparently."

"You said you wanted my help," I said.

"You can see the problem we have, lord Lord."

"Yes, with no infrastructure projects for twenty years the transport system is going to become drastically run down and oudated, the whole economy will suffer."

"Oh I don't mean that, long term problems are my replacement's problems. I mean the developers. We have no money to give them for projects. I have a room full of develpers and have to break the news to them that we're not going to need their services."

"I still don't see where I fit in."

"Heritage. You own an old estate. You're from an old family. I want you to talk to them about the benefits of leaving things the way they've always been. Make the case against development. There's a meeting tonight in Dining Room B."

I phoned Box as soon as I left the Whip's office. "I need a speech Box," I said. "I'm telling a group of developers why development is a bad thing."  

I was so nervous about the speech that I barely slept through the Post-Brexit Workforce and Return of Slavery debate.

Dining Room B was full of developers, with the usual sub-standard wine flowing alongside nibbles consisting of small unidentifiable animal parts on wooden skewers. I sometimes wonder if the Lords caterers maintain an entire menagerie of otherwise-extinct species in order to stick them on skewers for these events.

My speech, entitled 'Why development is a bad thing', when down badly. Apparently developers don't like to ear that their entire industry is unncessary.

"Well that was very successful," said Box as I finally escaped the room in one piece.

"Successful! I was booed. That demolition company owner threatened to demolish me."

"Yes, but while you were on the podium taking the flack I was going round the room on a one to one basis highlighting the benefits of targeting the Heritage Fund for future opportunities. I pointed out that there is literally no money in transport, whereas the Heritage Fund is bulging with money and the whole point of heritage funding is that the government pays you to leave everything as it is, untouched and undeveloped. It'll save contractors a fortune in labour and equipment costs."

"That's a really good idea. Why didn't you give me that for my speech."

"Because we don't want every developer trying to get their snouts in the heritage fund. It's more lucrative all round if we target a select few. That way you can put in a word to the Chief Whip, the Chief Whip can put in a good word to the minister and everyone ends up happy.

"How happy Box? What am I getting out of this?"

"If we can secure some lucrative Heritage contracts for Higgs Diggers they would be happy to oblige us by meeting the cost of repairing the battlements."

"Excellent Box, which means no more petitions. I'm fed up with Napoleon, Hitler and our made up vetinarian harrassing me."

"Shall we head for dinner, my lord."

"No, I made the mistake of eating what tasted like some sort of dinosaur testical in plum sauce. I may have to pass on food the rest of the evening. Remind me never to eat the nibbles at these functions."