Author’s note: Every government needs its plonker. We currently have Chris Grayling, a man so incompetent that he managed to enter a two horse race and come third. But New Labour had Stephen Byers.
Beleaguered Transport Minister Stephen Byers denied reports that he had been given the nickname “Jonah” and was now being linked to every major catastrophe in the world. Issuing a statement from Salt Lake City where he had just finished his coaching session with Clarissa Slocombe-Bell, the British ‘jumping headfirst off a cliff’ finalist, shortly before she fell to her death from a hotel balcony, he claimed “I have the full support of my colleagues Peter Mandelson and Keith Vaz. These are people who have valued my advice over the years and are happy to confirm that they have me to thank for their career progression”
Investigation by the Brains Trust into several recent disasters has revealed a number of suspicious events. In a sound recording of the moments before Chernobyl exploded, a voice very similar to Mr Byers can clearly be heard saying “Oops. I think I’ve just sat on that large red button. I’m sorry, I thought it was a cushion”. Blurred photographs of a Peugeot entering the Seine tunnel shortly before Princess Diana crashed have someone very similar in appearance to Mr Byers behind the wheel and driving on the left-hand side of the road. His association with assisting Congolese President Mobutu Sese Seko with his commitment to “pave all of the roads in Goma” shortly before the volcano erupted has also been noted.
A sheaf of leaked memos has also fallen into the hands of the Brains Trust. The first, a letter from Mr Byers to General Galtieri in 1981, advises him that the UK would be “happy to get shot of the Falkland Islands. Just go and take it. No one will give a stuff.” Another, addressed to Mr.Saddam Hussein, Iraq, confirms that “no one would notice if you did invade Kuwait. I’m sure the US will support you in this.”
Mr Byers, however, has come out fighting, explaining that it was ridiculous to associate him with every catastrophe that has happened in the last few years. “I’m telling you those Enron accounts were fine when I was asked to have a look at them” he claimed as he attempted to put out a small fire that had started in the waste-paper bin under his desk. “And I swear that bath I ran for Princess Margaret was nice and cool when I tested it. And as for that nonsense about using a Primus stove on a train in Egypt. That was simply bad luck.” Mr Byers did concede that some of the events did appear to show “a certain unfortunate happenstance.” However, he was sure that his latest plans to “re-introduce the poll tax and provide Government subsidies for tobacco companies, Formula One and foreign steel producers campaigning for the destruction of the British steel industry” would meet with the approval of the British public.
The Conservatives however were quick to heap opprobrium on Mr Byers. “If only I hadn’t listened to the siren voice of Byers and concentrated on domestic issues rather than the Euro, I’d probably be Prime Minister now” claimed a despondent William Hague. Speaking from his cell in the Hague, Slobodan Milosevic claimed that if he had ignored Mr Byers’ ideas on a Greater Serbia and “just stuck to trying to get into the EU like my wife said” he wouldn’t be facing charges of genocide now.
Tony Blair, speaking from a specially reinforced “anti-Byers bunker” as the Department of Transport building burst into flames behind him, explained that Stephen Byers still had his full support. To prove it he had selected him to review the nation’s space transport policy and would be putting him on “the next available shuttle, so he can spend a nice long time in the International Space Station”
Sex and Drugs and Growing Old 