Bewitched and bewildered

The scene is a typical ubiquitous TV studio somewhere in London. The female breakfast news presenter speaks, to camera.

‘The Prime Minister continues to be under pressure following a succession of what seems almost daily mishaps.  Let’s go over to the Minister for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, Nadine Dorries, to discuss this further. Nadine Dorries. Good morning. Do you think Boris Johnson is doing a good job?’

ND: ‘How do you know that I am Nadine Dorrries? Who told you that I am Nadine Dorries?’

‘You are Nadine Dorries. We’ve seen you in the Commons, I’ve interviewed you before. You are Nadine Dorries.’

ND: ‘You are simply surmising that I am Nadine Dorries. You are making assumptions that may not be right and exaggerating the facts, aren’t you? You are even assuming it is a good morning.’

‘There is a sign on the desk in front of you that says Nadine Dorries, Minister for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport. You are Nadine Dorries.’

ND: ‘There you go again, jumping to conclusions. This might be someone else’s desk. I might be Nadine Dorries, but you are making assumptions which may not be correct. Am I right?’

‘Nadine Dorries, the public are entitled to an answer. Do you think Boris Johnson is doing a good job?’

ND: ‘Why do you want to know?’

‘Because you are a Government Minister and you are accountable to the people who elected you.’

ND: ‘Tell me which of the people who elected me, or the actual Nadine Dorries, if that turns out not to be me, are interested in whether I think Boris Johnson is doing a good job. Give me their names.’

‘I can’t tell you their names. I don’t have a list of the people who elected you.’

ND: ‘Well, how do you know that they are interested in whether I think Boris Johnson is doing a good job then?’

‘I can see we are not going to get anywhere with that question. Let’s move on. Have you spoken to Boris Johnson over the last few days?’

ND: ‘Why?’

‘The viewing public, whose names I don’t have a list of, and I, me, myself are interested in whether you have spoken to him.’

ND: ‘We may have communicated.’

‘Either you did or you didn’t. Which is it? Was it a face-to-face conversation?’

ND : (lifting a kitchen colander from under the desk and placing it on her head)  ‘I may as well tell you. When I wear my special hat (she points towards her head-top colander) he sends me far-reaching vitally important signals of a substantive nature. Yesterday, for example, he sent me (It came through very clearly) a video clip of himself stripped to the waist in his riding jodhpurs galloping thought a field of hay on a white stallion, accompanied with a message in that gruff, public school rogue and scoundrel voice of his “We will be together soon my dear Nee Nee. That’s what he calls me you know, that and occasionally, in the House during PMQ’s, as my little comely wench……”

On the screen two sets of besuited arms from the right of the screen could be seen slowly dragging the seated figure and the chair she was sitting on, out of the shot.