Saturday 9 April 2011

Message from Gregory Duke, Constituency Caseworker to Andrew Sinclair MP & Unfortunate Colleague of Molly Bloody Bennett

Dear Constituent (unless you are one of the numerous non-constituents whom The Boss insists upon helping, in direct contravention of Parliamentary protocol),

Thank you for your email/telephone call/letter/abusive verbal assault at the Pharmacy counter in Boots; and for your insistence that it should be Molly Bennett who deals with your case.

Please note that Molly remains sequestered in a hotel in the lap of taxpayer-funded luxury that is also known as jury service, thus leaving her entire workload of cases to me. This is most inconsiderate of her, as I am a busy man with far better things to do in the run-up to Nick Clegg's rather self-interested AV vote; not to mention that I have a new and somewhat demanding poet girlfriend.

Whilst we do indeed have an intern, as you correctly point out, her only talents appear to be looking vaguely pretty, and flicking her hair in a thoroughly annoying fashion. Thus I do not think you would be happy for her to attempt to deal with the (non) issue you have raised, which leaves me as your only hope until Molly's return to work.

As a result, I wish to remind constituents that, whatever Andrew Sinclair MP may promise you at supermarket surgeries, there is only so much that can actually be done to bring inventions intended to run the world's appliances on nothing more than water to world attention; nothing at all that mere humans can do about aliens and the often uncomfortable places into which they insert their probes; and very little that I personally wish to do about potholes and puddles.

The latter would be best dealt with by your local councillors, who have far too much time on their hands if you ask me; whilst the former two issues could be easily remedied by taking prescription medicines as prescribed by psychiatrists. Or by talking to your counsellor. (Please note the distinction between councillors and counsellors - hushed voices and sympathetic manners not being quite as common amongst members of Northwick Town Council as they are amongst the caring professions. Nor do councillors provide boxes of tissues as standard.)

I will continue to be happy to help those of you with genuine problems - probably no more than 20% of the total at a guess - and I shall endeavour to deal with your enquiries in strict order of priority. I am, contrary to public opinion, a caring individual who has no wish to see constituents suffer eviction from their homes; unfair deportation from the UK, or neglect while in hospital.

With reference to the above, I should clarify that I do not, however, consider it negligent for GPs and hospital consultants to insist that overweight constituents lose weight prior to gastric band surgery; nor do I accept that obesity is always genetic. Not unless those living in the third world have completely different DNA to the rest of us. Thus, the criteria I use for assessing whether a case is urgent or not will continue to be unaffected by how loud you shout while on the telephone to this office.

Like you, I hope that Molly will be back at work very soon but, in the meantime, it would be in all our interests to try to exert some telekinetic force, in order to persuade her to stop pretending to be Henry Fonda in Twelve Angry Men, and to accept that the defendant is not guilty; even if the basis for this assumption on the part of her fellow jurors appears to Molly to be fatally flawed.

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