In a radical departure from parliamentary protocol, the government consults an enormous pig’s head.
‘We haven’t been able to come up with a good idea for some time’, admits a breathless health secretary. ‘And during an awkward cabinet meeting last week we could see the Prime Minister’s frustration level going up and up and up. Eventually he banged the desk and demanded that we brought the pig.’
The freakishly large pig’s head is reported to have been used by Cameron in the past and is now only ever carried into Number 10 during times of crisis.
‘I was led into the special viewing room’, says the health secretary, ‘and I was asked to put my eye up to a hole in the wall. What I saw in there was ungodly. The pig’s head slowly rotated round and began to mouth policy advice at me. I scribbled down as much as I could before fleeing in terror.’
It seems that the pig’s head advised the health secretary to tackle the current recruitment crisis by slashing junior doctors’ pay. Only time will tell if this porcine plan will work.
Dr Kevin Hinkley is a GP in Edinburgh
