So it was a surprise that they let me go on holiday at all, frankly. I think it was only because they don't need me for making any decisions.
Anyway, after my whipping, the first task I was given was to handle the emasculation of the press. It was very nice of Rupert and Rebekah to volunteer to take the fall for the greater cause. I do like Rebekah, but not as much as Rupert, I'm told.
Well, they've been working for years to get the pieces in place - the creation of the Media Standards Trust, civil war within the BBC to get our common purpose hacks in there, registering the Hacked Off domain name weeks before they broke the story - because they knew that some day the media, controlled as it is, just wouldn't be controlled enough. Too many of those blasted journalists think they can print all kinds of inconvenient facts about me us.
So with our people in place, we lauched all hell on the media. I don't think they knew what hit them. After all, its not like we didn't know for years that phones were being hacked. Surveillance society? You lot don't know the half of it.
It was a very similar operation to MPs expenses in many ways. We provided the facility, turned a blind eye to what was going on, and then, just when no-one was really expecting it, WHAM! Rug pulled. Fall guys imprisoned.
So we got that lot done and I popped off to Italy for a couple of weeks. No sooner was I there, than the markets went haywire. Well, I wasn't coming home for that. What could I do about it?
Thing is, you see, that we impose policy on the markets, about what they are allowed to do and whatnot. Now don't get excited - I know you don't believe that. You think the markets tell us what to do. Yes, but you have to understand that its a very few big market players that do that. Rothschild, Soros and the like. They tell me what policy I have to impose on the markets.
Without rules, you see, without the opacity that the rules impose on how markets work, how else would we be able to launder all the drugs money from Afghanistan and Columbia.
But there's a downside. The rules are so complex, that no-one, not even the most educated Oxbridge hedge fund manager with sixteen PhDs understands how the markets work. So yes, we can launder our illicit cash, but the markets take on a life of their own. They are literally uncontrollable. And because market traders are mainly idiots, who make decisions based on how they feel about things, you can never predict what they'll do next. One day they'll be absolutely happy and comfortable with the fact that JP Morgan has a trillion dollars of worthless paper sitting off the balance sheet, and the next they're jumping out of top storey windows.
As I say, I wasn't coming home for that.
But then Ken decides that we'd better hurry up and launch Operation Transient Freedom before the markets collapse completely.
We will not have dissent! You understand? You are not free! You will not be free! You are only governed by consent for as long as you do consent, and then we will impose our will! Tony laid the ground work for that - the Civil Contingencies Act. I don't know yet who's going to get to invoke that, but whoever it is will be the last Prime Minister for decades. Maybe Rory Stewart, since he's been to Bilderberg and I haven't.
So, anyway, once our trained monkeys were unleashed on the streets, I was told to get back home to manage people's expectations. This is the bit I like. I get to go to secret squirrel meetings called COBRA. I wish they would tell me what they're about, but it makes me feel big that I get to go. All that happens is that the others talk, and then there's these funny flashing lights, and soft voices. After a while I'm sent out to make a statement and somehow I just know what to say.