[John Whitworth]

Competition
Lucy Vickery
Wednesday, 2nd June 2010
Lucy Vickery presents the latest competition
In Competition 2649 you were invited to submit a news bulletin on the outcome of the general election delivered by a well-known figure from history. Well done, everyone: it was a strong entry and a pleasure to judge. Narrowly missing a place in the winning line-up were Bill Greenwell, J. Seery, Shirley Curran, P.C. Parrish and John Whitworth. Those who made the final cut earn £25 each and Brian Murdoch nets the extra fiver.

News reaches me in the Elysian Fields of the outcome of the senatorial competition in our remote province of Britannia. Every haruspex had correctly foreseen a triumvirate outcome with ensuing confusion, nor was this surprising, given the portents in the prior days and weeks. Did not Neptune himself belch black pitch to sully the oceans, and did not Vulcan spew forth ashes in far-off Thule, so that the skies would be emptied? The triumvirs engaged in mutual plotting, until one of them, formerly tribune of the plebs, was assassinated by the other two, younger senators, both of the patrician class. They shall henceforth hold joint sway over the province, despite discontent from Caledonia — small wonder that one of my own successors built a wall to contain the painted northern tribes! Yet they must face pecuniary problems, and I warn them: fear the Greeks, even when bearing gifts to them!
Brian Murdoch/Julius Caesar

After the usual capitalist charade, accompanied by the pontifications of a bought or feeble-minded press, which passes for democracy in Britain, followed by a two-act seduction drama in the style of high French farce, the heirs of Bright and Cobden have shamefacedly climbed into bed with the smirking carpet knights of the Bullingdon Club. We do not accuse the Labour party of excessive virtue in the guardianship of its own political chastity, given its record in pleasuring the bourgeoisie of two nations; indeed, how can it logically stand in opposition to the hybridised monster that now calls itself a government? Once again the class whose sweat and labour power produces the wealth for others to enjoy is orphaned at the polls, while the owners of capital applaud and their parliamentary proxies, a duumvirate of silver-spoon opportunists, strut before the cameras like victorious Roman generals.
Basil Ransome-Davies/Karl Marx

Mr Chirpy Light had given the hustings the benefit of his considered opinion, that Mr Cheery Bright and Mr Loury Grim were both, on any temperate and fair-minded appraisal, nincompoops. In their turn, Mr Bright and Mr Grim had given closely matching estimates of the worth of Mr Light and each other, only substituting for ‘nincompoops’ the words ‘numbskulls’ and ‘dunderheads’ respectively. However, when the awful judgment of the independent electors was passed, all three candidates at once discovered great if hitherto hidden merits in one or both of the others. There followed a danse macabre as intense as it was ungainly, from which Mr Grim was eventually led to his fate while Mr Bright and Mr Light were left clasped bosom to bosom on the floor. From her throne among the demi-gods Democracy smiled down wanly.
W.J. Webster/Charles Dickens

In this Year of Grace, 2010, I, Henry, the Eighth of that name, do solemnly declare: there being no clear winner whom it hath pleased God to bring to light, this election shall be null and void. In accordance with the laws and statutes of the realm, absolute power reverteth unto the Monarch, from whom it hath been so barbarously apprehended in more godless times, and placed in the hands of cut-throats, rapscallions, chisellers and jolterheads. Parliament, and all that pertaineth thereunto, shall be dissolved in perpetuity, its nest of traitors summarily beheaded, their wives and children incarcerated in the Tower pending Her Majesty’s pleasure, and their names razed from all written testaments. This hotch-potch government presently installed is to be put to the rack before execution for its manifest disloyalty and contumely, and Her Majesty’s Opposition disembowelled with all speed.
Josh Ekroy/Henry VIII

Now is that winter of Brown discontent
Made multi-coloured springtime by this pair
Of well-groomed lovebirds, singing smooth refrains
Of happy concord and harmonious peace.
Yet in amongst the restive packs they lead,
The others wait, the persons of my kidney,
The not-fresh-faced, the unappealing,
The mis-shaped souls who lack the grace to strut
Pretending decency in screened debates.
They, knowing niceness never lasts for long,
Will gather in committee rooms and clubs,
Drop hints, weave plots and sharpen well-loved knives.
Old politics infects their very bones
And they can wait and wait and waiting smile,
In happy knowledge that their day will come
When mischief finds its chance to thrive pell-mell.
— Richard Plantagenet, from deepest Hell.
George Simmers/Richard III

Behold, there were three: Hope, Haplessness and Harmony who, being lower than Haplessness, was nonetheless higher than Hope. And, having done battle together, their rankings were sorely unsettled. Then spake Haplessness to Hope saying, ‘Be thou my companion and, being as one, we can overcome Harmony.’ Likewise spake Harmony to Hope. And thus it was that Hope, hitherto least amongst them, grew greatly in stature and, having courted both, chose Harmony to be his bedfellow. Being therefore undone, Haplessness, seeking to be delivered of his plight, journeyed to the Palace of Gold where She, who is higher than all, afforded much comfort relieving him of his burden. Then said Harmony to Hope, ‘I too shall fly thither to the Palace of Gold wherein I shall claim my reward. And having done so, I, with thee, shall lead the way through the Slough of Penury hence to the Pasture of Plenty’.
Alan Millard/John Bunyan