Sketch Script - Sleight of hand

Jiles:

Which reminds me Minister, we’ll need to sit down before your appearance on Radio 4 to discuss the [...]

Minister:

Why would that come up?

Jiles:

Because we announced that it was going ahead this morning.

Minister:

What? Why wasn’t I briefed on this?

Jiles:

Well, I’m doing it now.

Minister:

After you’ve already announced it. I didn’t even approve the [...], it’s nonsense. It’s political suicide.

Jiles:

Oh don’t worry. We’re not actually going ahead with it.

Minister:

[HEAD IN HANDS] Once again Jiles, you’ve lost me.

Jiles:

I did mention that we needed a distraction when we push through the environmental order. Quite a lot of opposition on that one. Bit of sleight of hand required - the [...] was controversial enough to pull people’s attentions in another direction.

Minister:

But then we’re going to have every tabloid breaking out every flip-flop and u-turn pun they can think of.

Jiles:

Well no, we just say that we’re a party that listens to the people. And after listening to their feedback, we decided to not pursue [...].

Minister:

So we create the problem and the solution?

Jiles:

Exactly.

Minister:

And all the while, we discreetly push through the environmental order because even though there’s a lot of opposition to it - that’s more boring and won’t fill as many column inches?

Jiles:

Very good minister.

Minister:

[SIGHS] F**k it.

Jiles:

That’s the spirit, now we’re getting somewhere.