The Slow and Painful Death of Jeremy Hunt
An Indulgent Work of Fiction
The painfully slow and tortuous death of the Health Minister occurred on a Saturday. Much less certain, however, was the manner of his agonising demise.
In this best of all possible worlds, it was of course merely a matter of time before the Angels of the Nation sought fit to mete out justice. And naturally, it was equally fitting that he should perish at the hands of all those he had wronged in his miserably inadequate and wretched life.
It was indeed only fair that the ex-president of Oxford University Conservative Association, the former Head Boy of Charterhouse, the elder son of Lady and Admiral Sir Nick Hunt, the great grandson of Walter Baldwyn Yates, the fourth great grandson of John Scott, first Earl of Eldon, the 29th great grandson of King Henry I, the fourth cousin once removed of Queen Elizabeth II, and the fifth cousin once removed of Britain's most celebrated fascist should be brutally battered into oblivion by a lynch mob of avenging Angels baying its fury on this pathetic apology of a man.
What remained unclear to the great and the good was the motivation behind this grievous event, whose egregiousness was the subject of several thousand column inches in the better class of newspapers in this most liberal of Western democracies where it is widely believed that the interests of the many outweigh the vicissitudes of the few, should one happen to have spent one's entire life with one's unthinking conk firmly ensconced up one's alimentary canal.
Beyond any scintilla of doubt, however, was the true character of the Health Minister's extensive and staggeringly prodigious injuries, bearing in mind that, at the time of his vicious but righteous slaughter, he was visiting the cardiology department at the world famous Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge.
Indeed, the Coroner's inquest concluded that the major trauma and multiple lesions were the consequence of a sustained assault by an unrestrained but co-operative group of people who had inflicted the injuries extremely slowly and methodically - much in the manner of the aggrieved assailants in Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express. Each and every single one of The Angels of Mercy at Addenbrooke's were complicit in the morally motivated assassination of the Health Minister, seeking the justice that the son of Nick Hunt had thus far averted in his sickeningly pampered existence. Needless to say, Countess Andrenyi of Finchley did not form part of the self-appointed jury and execution squad.
As an instance of industrial union solidarity, it was without parallel in recent British Labour Relations. As an act of mindful violence, it was even more aesthetically blissful than the summary execution, on 29th April 1945, of Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini, Claretta Petacci and their entourage of proud Italian nationalists. As a feat of human bio-engineering, it even surpassed the astounding achievements of proto-feminist, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Dr Heinrich von Frankenstein's monstrous re-arrangement of the physical form.
According to several scurrilous reports in the more salacious tabloids, there were pieces of plasma and fragments of protoplasm plastered all over the walls of Cambridge's dedicated cardiology centre, which is proud to provide high quality care to the privately rich, many of whom were traumatised by this collective deed of astonishing brutality from the nation's most-loved and least-remunerated Angels.
Apparently, all norms of professional conduct were thrown out of the window, as pinned-down private patients had matchsticks inserted between their opened eyelids, forcing them to bear witness to the rabid slaying of the Health Minister, as kindhearted Angels ran amok, chanting: "The Hunt is Dead! The Hunt is Dead! All hail the Hunt is Dead!"
A 23-year-old Ecuadorean staff nurse took great relish in ripping off Hunt's left ear with her bare teeth while inserting into his rima oris her treasured copy of Stuart Christie's Granny Made An Anarchist:General Franco, The Angry Brigade and Me.
Such reports, however, subsequently, proved false.
At no point did the assailants run amok, rather the febrile Angels of Mercy queued politely, waited patiently and took turns to inflict monstrous acts of inhumane pain upon the esteemed Right Honourable personage who had seen fit to patronise them that very afternoon. This is, after all, England. Keep Calm & Carry On, as HM Government instructs. There is no earthly reason to jump the queue, lose one's temper or to be rude in the execution of one's duty.
As the privately-educated Minister's twitching bag of bones lay on the recently fogged floor, becoming a festering cadaver of frothy puss, sticky sputum, throbbing gristle, blood-streaked semen and purulent discharge, the dedicated Angels of the NHS stepped over it and went about their day.
Relieved. Content. At peace.
