Michael Dobbs - To play the king

'OK.' He looked towards the Speaker's Chair. 'Which words do you want me to withdraw? Grovelling? Little? Or Shit?'

The tidal wave of outrage all but drowned Madam Speaker's cries. 'All of it! I want it all withdrawn!' Eventually she was heard. The lot? You want me to withdraw the lot?'

'Immediately!' The wig had been shaken askew and she was attempting to readjust herself, desperately struggling to maintain her temper and sense of dignity.

'All right. All right.' The Beast held up his hands to silence the tumult. 'You all know my views about grovelling to their Royal Mightinesses but…' – he stared around fiercely at the pack of parliamentary hounds snapping at his heels – 'if you rule I can't say such things, that I've got to retract it, then I shall.' 'Now. This instant!'

There was a baying of approval from all sides. The Beast was now pointing at McKillin.

'Yes, I was wrong. You obviously can mistake him for a Leader of the Opposition. The grovelling little shit!'

In the cacophony of shouts from all sides there was not the slightest chance for Madam Speaker to make herself heard, but The Beast didn't wait to be named, gathering up his papers from the floor and throwing a lingering look of insolence in the direction of his party leader before withdrawing himself from the Chamber. The Serjeant at Arms, who could lip-read the Speaker's instructions, fell in beside The Beast to ensure he remained withdrawn from the premises of the Palace of Westminster for the next five working days.

As The Beast's back passed through the doors and beyond, some semblance of order began to be restored to the Chamber. From beneath her wig, still slightly askew, Madam Speaker gazed in the direction of McKillin, her eyes enquiring after his intentions. He shook his head. He didn't want any longer to ask some fool question about human rights. What about his own human rights? All he wanted was for this cruel and exceptional punishment to come to an end, for someone to come and gently cut him down from the parliamentary gallows on which he was swinging, and hope they might give him a decent burial.

'How do you do it, Francis?' Stamper demanded as he strode into the Prime Minister's office in the House of Commons. 'Do what?'

'Get The Beast so wound up that on his own he's more effective at stuffing McKillin than a dozen Barnsley butchers.'

'My dear Tim, you've become such a sad old cynic. You look for conspiracies everywhere. The truth – if you could ever recognize it as such – is that I don't have to wind him up. He comes ready wound. No, my contribution to the fun is more along these lines.' He indicated the television with its display of the latest teletext news. The building societies had finished their emergency meeting and the result of their deliberations was flashing up on the screen.

'Christ. Two per cent on mortgages? That'll go down like a shovel of shit in drinking water.'

'Precisely. See how much concern the average punter has for the homeless when the mortgage on his own semi-detached roof starts burning its way through his beer money. By closing time tonight the King's conscience will seem an irrelevant and unaffordable luxury.'

'My apologies for ever having uttered a cynical remark in your presence.'

'Accepted. Voters appreciate clear choices, Tim, it helps them concentrate. I am presenting them with a choice which is practically transparent. The King may be a rare orchid to my common cabbage, but when the buggers start starving, they'll grab for the cabbage every time.' 'Enough cabbage to give the King chronic wind.' 'My dear Tim, you might say that. On such matters I couldn't possibly comment.'

The King was also seated before his television screen, where he had remained silently watching events since the televising of Prime Minister's Question Time had begun. He had left instructions not to be disturbed but eventually his Private Secretary could restrain his sense of uncase no longer. He knocked and entered with a deferential bow.

'Sir, my apologies, but you must know that we are being inundated with calls from the media, wanting some reaction, some guidance as to your feelings about events in the House of Commons. They will not take silence as an answer, and without a press officer…'

The King seemed not to have noticed the intrusion, staring fixedly at the screen, unblinking, his body taut, the veins at his temple a vivid blue against the parchment skin of his skull. He looked ashen – not with anger, the Private Secretary was well used to the flashes of fire which sparked from the King. The stillness suggested more a man on a different plane, driven deep within himself, the strain indicating that the search to find equilibrium had proved futile.

The Private Secretary stood motionless, watching the other man's agony, embarrassed at his intrusion yet not knowing how to dismiss himself.

Eventually the King spoke, in a whisper, but not to the Secretary. 'It is no use, David.' The voice was parched and hoarse. 'It cannot be. They will no more let a King be a man than they would any man be King. It cannot be done – you know that, don't you, old friend…?'

Then there was silence. The King had not moved, still staring, unseeing, at the screen. The Private Secretary waited for several seemingly endless seconds and then left, pulling the door gently behind him as if he were closing the lid on a coffin.

Sally rushed across to the House of Commons as soon as she received the summons. She had been in the middle of a pitch to a potential new client, one of the country's leading manufacturers of processed beans, but he had been most understanding, impressed even, and had assured her of the business. With contacts like that he seemed uninterested in further credentials.

A secretary was waiting for her at St Stephen's entrance to escort her like a VIP past the long queues of visitors and through the security gates, rushing her past several hundred years of history. It was her first time; one day, she promised herself, she would be back and take a calmer look at the glories of Old England, when she had the patience to queue for several hours with all the rest. But for the moment she preferred the preferential treatment.

They showed her straight into his office. He was on the phone, pacing around the room in his shirtsleeves, trailing the cord of the telephone behind him, animated, issuing orders.

'Yes, Bryan, I am well and my wife is well. Thank you very much, now shut up and listen. This is important. You will be receiving details of a new poll tomorrow afternoon. A telephone poll following the panic in the markets. It will be a startling one. It will show the Government in a ten-point lead over the Opposition, and my personal lead over McKillin having doubled.' He listened for a moment. 'Of course it's bloody front-page news, why on earth do you think I'm giving it to you? That front-page poll will be supported by an editorial inside your newspaper, something along the lines of "Mortgages and the Monarchy". It will blame the problem with sterling and international confidence four-square on the King and his flawed personality, and those opportunistic politicians who have sought to encourage him in what you will conclude are his grave errors of judgement for seeking to take on the elected Government. Are you listening?'

There was a mild squawking on the end of the phone and Urquhart rolled his eyes in impatience.

'You are to suggest that their unprincipled support for the King has shattered the Opposition and ruined the credibility of McKillin, and even more seriously has cast the country into a constitutional mess which is causing deep economic anguish. Reluctantly you will call for a thoroughgoing review of the Monarchy – restricting its powers, its influence, its size, its income. Take it all down carefully. Yes, I've got time…' He paused. 'Now we come to the important bit, Bryan. Pay great attention. Your editorial will finish by concluding that so much economic, political and constitutional uncertainty has been created that it requires an immediate solution. No time for extended debates, parliamentary commissions of inquiry – not while every shareholder and mortgage-payer in the country is swinging on the hook. The matter needs to be dealt with decisively. Once and for all, in the national interest. You are to suggest that the only established means of deciding who governs Britain is to hold an election. Do you understand? An election.' He looked across at Sally and winked.