The austerity statue

The National Austerity Statue of Sir Winston Churchill, which stands outside Number 10 Downing Street, is one of Britain’s great landmarks, a national treasure. If it hadn’t been erected in an area sealed off to the public, it would surely have become a great tourist landmark as well.

I should say at this point that my name is Giles Hallows, grandson of Dreadful Derek Hallows, the artist who made the statue, amongst many other great works.

I know from my grandfather’s diaries that the life-sized statue of Sir Winston, made entirely of purest gold, costing somewhere in the region of £1 billion, was commissioned to mark the success of the Coalition Government’s austerity budget, which had seen the poor and needy deprived of all support, leaving money in the kitty for tax cuts for all but the poorest, or middle-incomest of households.

My grandfather did not support the Coalition Government, but he liked the public money they threw at him in the interests of austerity. Of course he produced many other great works in his lifetime, many of which remained in his collection, and made a not inconsiderable fortune from his work and investments.

When Derek died, my wife was inappropriately excited at the fortune she expected us to inherit; I was known to be something of a favourite of the old artist. She came with me to hear the reading of Dreadful’s will, (although she had been sadly too ill to attend the funeral). The solicitor read out the size of the estate (astronomical) and slowly listed how it was to be divided. To my wife’s eternal disappointment, I received no money in the will, nor did I receive any of the paintings about which I had such stimulating conversations with him over the years, all of which were worth over a million each.

Eventually the solicitor came to my name. My wife held her breath, as did I. “To my good grandson Giles Hallows,” he read, “I bequeath my most important work, or such part of it as remains in my care. I leave Giles Hallows the golden penis, that was removed from the austerity statue of Sir Winston Churchill.”

Sir Winston’s penis was indeed famous. Nick Clegg had demanded it be removed from the statue, together with its appendages, as he objected, in principle, to a politician with balls.

Made from solid gold, and as big and firm as you would rightly suppose Sir Winston’s penis to be, it was immensely valuable, but many times more so for it’s historical importance.

Of course, valuable as the golden phallus was, I had no intention of ever trading it, which caused it become a constant taunt from my wife, that I had inherited nothing of value from my richest relative, just some old cock.

The joke became tiresome, as such tales do between husband and wife over a long period of years.

Last week, following the death of my wife’s distant aunt, Gladys Stribbing, I was finally given the opportunity to pay her back for twenty years of constant ribbing. Her aunt was also a rich and famous artist, though she had always been cold to my wife, who had consequently expected nothing of value to be bequeathed her. But my wife had forgotten Ms Stribbing’s famous wit.

To my absolute delight, doubtless inspired by my own inheritance, Gladys had left my wife her most famous, important and valuable work: the titanium statue of Margaret Thatcher’s cunt, commissioned by the Labour Government that replaced the Coalition shortly after Lady Thatcher‘s Death, to mark the fact that, in the words of Ed Milliband, “Margaret Thatcher was a cunt.”

We keep them next to each other in the same glass cabinet.