Nigel’s Little Brexit Pony

Sod Black Beauty — this will be a Red, White & Blue Beauty

Once upon a time there was a spoiled little boy called Nigel, and he had a pen-friend in Russia, called Vlad.

Vlad liked horses, in an absolutely completely non-sexual way.

One day Vlad made a bet with Nigel — “If you campaign to get your own pony in the UK, I’ll tell a Russian bank to make a £9m ‘loan’ to the campaign like I did with your friend Marine to get a pony in France.”

“Are you sure you’re just another normal little boy who is my pen-friend, Vlad? That sounds like a lot of pocket money!” said Nigel.

“Ahem,” said Vlad, “What if you got to be really famous, and on TV and in the papers all the time?”

“Wow, I could talk about having a pony on NewsNeight! I could be interviewed on the six o’clock news by Maxine Morewhinny!”

Nigel went running to his daddy, David. “Can I have a pony Daddy? I want a pony!”

“Well,” said David, “It’d be very expensive, and would create an enormous amount of manure everywhere. Ponies are a lot of work to look after, and you’re not one for hard work. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“But I want a pony!”

“We need to spend our time and money on our housing. There’s not enough space for us all to live in, and it needs quite a bit of work.”

“I want a pony!”

“And what about our health, don’t you think we should focus our time and money on making sure we’ve all got the care we need? Especially as Grandad’s not getting any younger.”

“Pony!”

“And-”

“Pony!”

“Bu-”

“Pony!”

Eventually David gave in to a compromise, and promised a family meeting at which everyone would vote for whether Nigel could get a pony.

“Grandaaaad,” said Nigel, “I heard Daddy telling Mummy that if it wasn’t for paying the gardener, they’d be able to afford much better healthcare for you.”

“Is that so?” asked Grandad, looking over the rim of his sticky-taped glasses and stretching his gammy leg, “It has been hard getting an appointment with the specialist since Uncle George stole her money to give to his banker friends to pay off their gambling debts.”

“Yes, but they said the healthcare problems are absolutely definitely nothing to do with Uncle George and the money. They say they could afford to pay for an extra special specialist if we got a pony to keep the grass short instead, but they prefer to give all the money to Antoni because he’s from Poland and Daddy is too politically correct. Otherwise they’d be able to spend an extra £350 a week on getting you better hospital care.”

“But I’ve seen the cheque — they only pay him £248 a week? And a horse might keep the grass short but it wouldn’t be able to weed the flowerbeds, clean the windows, and do all the other jobs. We’d have to pay someone else to do it with that £248, or have to do that work ourselves, and then I’d feel even worse!”

“It’s £350, £350, £350. And ponies can do anything, honest. And Antoni says you smell. £350.”

“Well, I never,” said Grandad, scratching his stubbly chin. “A pony, you say?”

Nigel realised he couldn’t persuade everyone as easily as Grandad. He talked about the problem over a pint with his friend Arron.

“You need a national pony campaign. You could have billboards and buses and leaflets. We could buy some politicians. I mean, donate to them! Damn, that’d be great. I’d love to be able to help you Nige, but I’m stoney broke. My company is struggling. I can’t spare you 2p.”

Arron’s phone beeped, and he checked the message.

“Oh, it turns out my coincidentally-Russian wife says I’m suddenly very very rich indeed. Sure, I’ll stick in nearly £10m to support campaigning for a pony.”

“Wow, that is a coincidence. That’s about how much Vlad gave Marine to try to get a pony in France! I never knew ponies were so expensive.”

“What? I know nothing about that. Who are these people? Never heard of them. Look I must be going,” Arron said, and dashed out.

Nigel picked up his pint glass, and held it near his mouth. He couldn’t drink from it, he just got the bar staff to fill the glass to just the right level to look good in a photo — which he’d calculated to be 72.5%. He looked around, but nobody was photographing him, so he put it down.

“I want a pony!” he said.

On his way home Nigel stopped in to see Rupert the newsagent, and told him about his scheme to get a pony.

“Well,” said Rupert, “I’m in the manure-spreading business. Would your pony give me plenty more to spread everywhere?”

“It certainly would,” Nigel agreed, “Economists say it’s going to dump a tonne of manure on the whole country!”

“I’m in mate. Look, I’ll just change some of the front pages of these newspapers so they say what great things would happen with a pony, and make up a load of terrible things that Antoni has done. Take these home and pass them around. Everyone’ll think it must be true if it’s in the papers. Always works a treat.”

“I want a pony!” said Nigel.

A few weeks passed and Nigel could feel the campaign beginning to work. Others in the house were already becoming suspicious of Antoni, and Nigel even heard some of the family mention they’d read in the paper that a pony would mean a much better life for all of them in unspecified ways.

But the vote was fast approaching and being on Question Time every week was taking up so much of his time that he needed to bring in some help.

He met up with his chums Boris and Michael in the pub and told them about his pony plans.

“Gosh, well, Nige. Not sure what to say,” said Boris, “You know I think the pony thing is a crazy idea. I’m with Dave I’m afraid. Tonnes of manure, shit everywhere, very costly, lots of work. Faciem durum cacantis habes!”

“That’s a shame Boris, I have to admit,” said Nigel, “Because I thought you could be in charge, give you a chance to show your, er, leadership skills and all that.”

“In charge? Leadership? Well, I mean, ponies. Lots to love about ponies. Er, noses, and legs and ears and er, other things. The benefits to this country are clear, Nigel. Count me in. Recedite, plebes!”

Nigel turned and raised a questioning eyebrow to Michael, who looked a little sheepish.

“I’ll have to check with Sarah,” Michael mumbled.

“Nige, old chap?” Boris asked, “Are you going to actually drink any of that beer? You just keep holding a three-quarters full glass to your lips and looking around the room!”

The only problem with Nigel’s plan was that most of his own family thought he was a wanker, and wouldn’t listen to him. Over half of them were still saying they would vote against the pony.

He complained about this to his American pen-friend Steve, who said that if he couldn’t swing a few more people to his side, he should at least make them so fed up with the whole thing they didn’t bother to turn out and vote.

“Spread the manure so wide no-one can smell the roses,” Steve said.

Steve had a contacts book full of lovely people who could help Nigel, and set up a meeting with Alexander.

Like Nigel, Alexander was a posh tosser — but not posh enough to fit in with other posh people, and too much of a tosser to fit in with anyone else. That meant he was reduced to hanging out with odd sorts, including a jolly friendly chap who was the coincidentally-Russian Ambassador in London.

“Alexander, welcome,” whispered Nigel, ushering him in the back door of the house, “Look, I wondered if you’d mind getting into my older sisters’ Facebook accounts, checking their messages and so on and figuring out how I can change their minds about my pony?”

“Get into your sisters’ Facebook messages?!” Alexander ejaculated.

There was an awkward silence.

“Blimey,” said Nigel, “Would you wipe that off the keyboard, then we can carry on.”

Within half an hour Alexander had finished enjoying messages between the girls and their boyfriends and figured out the way Nigel could persuade them to at least not show up and vote against the pony. He posted a series of ads on their timeline and logged out.

At breakfast the next morning Nigel watched his sisters scroll through their phones as they ignored him.

“Eugh that’s disgusting,” one said, pushing away her mug, “Apparently 97% of Polish gardeners piss in the tea of their employers! I was just telling Brad the other day I thought Antoni was dirty. I was right!”

“Oh my god,” the other said, “And have you seen this? Apparently riding horses makes men infertile!”

They both looked across at Nigel, and decided they were voting for him to have a pony.

The day of the big family vote came, and journalists swarmed around Nigel. He was fuming because they seemed to think he would lose.

“If this vote doesn’t lead to me getting a pony,” said Nigel leaning red-faced towards the cameras, “then mark my words, there’ll have to be another vote after that. What kind of democracy would we be if we couldn’t ever vote again on something we decided wrongly once? I want a pony!”

“Bugger,” said Boris.

“Fiddlesticks,” said Michael, adding quietly: “Sarah will smack me for swearing.”

“Hurray, I’m going to get a pony!” said Nigel.

“I really didn’t think they’d go for the whole pony thing,” said Boris, “I thought they’d see it was a bloody stupid idea, but admire my plucky underdog efforts and let me be in charge of other plucky things. Te futueo et caballum tuum.”

“Hmm,” said Michael, “But now David’s walked out on us, and we’re about to get a pony, we need someone to take a strong grip on the reins.”

“Don’t look at me!” said Boris, “I wouldn’t touch this with a punt pole.”

“But you are the great leader of the Leave campaign Boris,” Michael said, “The natural choice.”

“Bugger, yes. I don’t suppose you could somehow seem to knife me in the back could you old chap?”

“Well, you realise that being seen to do that would sour my own chances of being handed this pile of manure?” Michael said with a wink, and they both laughed. Oh, how they laughed.

“But,” Nigel whined, “I’m want my pony and you need someone in charge of getting it for me!”

“Hmmm,” said Michael, “We need someone with strong stable-leadership skills.”

“Strong stable leadership,” said Theresa, walking into the room from where she’d been listening at the door.

“I want a pony!” said Nigel.

“Strong stable leadership!” said Theresa.

“I want a pony!” said Nigel.

“Strong stable leadership!” said Theresa.

“Okay, okay, shut up both of you,” said Boris, “So what kind of pony is it going to be?”

“The people have spoken,” said Theresa, “Strong stable leadership. Pony means pony.”

At that moment Theresa’s friend Phil walked in, “I hate to mention this Theresa old gal, but we’ve done some impact assessments, on the hoof as it were, and it looks like having a pony is going to bankrupt the whole country.”

“I want a pony!” said Nigel.

“Pony means pony,” said Theresa.

“Yes, yes, but what sort of pony?” Phil asked.

“I’ve been very clear on this. Cough. Strong stable leadership. Cough. I’ve been very clear on this. Cough. Above all it’s going to be a red, white and blue pony. Cough. Strong stable leadership. Cough.” Theresa said.

“I want a pony!” said Nigel.

“We’re so fucked,” said Phil.

Four long years passed, in which the house fell into disrepair, the grass grew long, and grandad died on a stretcher in a hospital corridor.

But, eventually, the delivery van arrived at the house with the pony…

…

…

And they all lived happily ever after.

Oh wait, no… They all descended into denials and bitter recriminations amid investigations of illegal pony-related activity. They faced immense anger from the public who’d voted for the pony imagining one that frolicked freely in the fields, not one that had been minced to a pulp and drenched in bechamel sauce.

But Nigel’s pen-friend Vlad did live happily ever after, enjoying his many horses in an absolutely completely non-sexual way, and ignoring the daily voicemails from Nigel crying “But I want a pony!”

Enjoyed this? Remember, it’s absolutely completely a fictional satire. All involved deny any illegal pony-related activity, especially Vlad who loves his horses in a completely platonic way.

To continue this kind of silliness and steam-release on Twitter — I’m @steveparks. But please be nice and not some pony-mad freak.