I’LL HAVE ONE NUMBER FROM THE TOP ROW, RACHEL, AND FIVETY FROM ANYWHERE ELSE: And with any luck you will be able to calculate Priti Patel’s chances of becoming Chancellor. With Rishi Sunak under pressure after outing himself as a typical Tory, the search is on for a safer pair of hands. The Countdown is on.
Patel herself is under pressure at the Home Office, being a bit too hostile and misanthropic even for Conservatives to stomach. Many feel she would be better suited to banishing money to far-off lands, instead of people.
“I would say that she is odds-on favourite for the job,” claimed financial commentator Algie Brah. “Or is it evens? Are the odds evens? Does the Prime Minister know? Anyway, it all adds up. Patel will make a fantastic Chancellor. Her numerical skills are firsteth rate, and she is excellent at division!”
Patel would have to square a lot of circles. This might be difficult, even for her, given that the sole abacus owned by the Treasury is (allegedly) still calibrated in Imperial measures.
“It’s definitely a conundrum,” admitted Brah. “There’s no cash available to spaff on log tables or slide rules. And only 30 seconds to solve it. Patel is planning to kidnap – I mean, employ – Ukrainian boffins to calculate the value of all the backhanders in brown envelopes distributed by Putin. The rouble is changing value all the time, and the government needs to know their value in Sterling. For their accountants, you know. Got to keep on top of one’s undeclared income.”
An announcement will be made at eleventeen minutes past midnoon o’clock this Sunderingday.
There will be hell to pay, of course. Just to have Patel on the government’s books will cost us three hundred thousand, thirty four, nine hundred and seventy four thousand pounds.
And that’s Numberwang.