Tony Blair walked into the cabinet meeting at 10 Downing Street with a slight smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He had just seen John Prescott leaving the kitchen with jam smeared all around his mouth. ‘What a fat chump’ Blair had thought to himself. The pig was always pilfering the fridges of Number 10. It was the thought of putting pad-locks on those fridges that brought the smirk to his face.
The whole cabinet was gathered around the table, except David Blunkett who had yet to arrive. This was to be the final meeting before Gordon Brown delivered his budget to the House of Commons. Blair sat down at the table’s head just as Blunkett came through the door and promptly cracked his shin against a chair leg. Numerous grins broke out down the length of the table before Jack Straw helped the blind fool to his seat.
"Well Gordon," began Blair, "what surprises do you have for us today? Are you going to take away John’s Jags?"
This brought an outburst of laughter from all the cabinet members except for ‘Two Jags’ Prescott. The fat man at the table scowled at Blair for several moments before Robin Cook added; "Watch out Tony, he’ll get you with the Prescott Punch." The table roared with laughter again, with Prescott growing redder by the minute.
It was then that Alistair Campbell leaned forward and barked, "Shut up you clowns! Let Brown get on with his stupid report so I can go home and shag my wife."
The laughter died down and Blair mentioned for Brown to begin, who stood and sucked the saliva from his bottom lip before starting to speak. "I’m planning to allocate 61 billions in my spending report. 3 billions of this will come from closing the free canteen in John’s office."
The hilarity reached new heights. This was all too much for Prescott who lunged forward for Brown but tripped over Blunkett’s guide dog and slammed into the floor. The table went silent before Blair grabbed the table and started shaking it shouting, "Earthquake! Earthquake!" The laughter continued; even Campbell joined in.
Prescott heaved himself off the floor and stormed from the room. Blair stood and said, "I think we went too far with this one, I’ll go and talk to him."
"You’ll find him in the kitchen." Muttered Straw, which brought a fresh round of snickers.
Sure enough Blair found the chubster in the kitchen, tears streaming down his face, and several cream fingers being shoved into his mouth. He walked over and put his arm around the big man, well as far as it could reach anyway. "We were only joking John, you shouldn’t take it so personally."
Prescott chewed through the last cream bun before saying, "But it 'urts so much, Tone, it really 'urts."
"Okay." Said Blair in a gentle voice, "I promise there won’t be anymore jokes." Following this, little and large returned to the cabinet meeting and re-took their places. Brown continued with his report, passing several handouts around the table. It appeared, however, that he had overlooked the fact that Blunkett could not see and he had not brought one in Braille.
Prescott reached under the table and said, "'Ere, this should 'elp." He then passed a magnifying glass to Blunkett.
The laughter began again.