Brown’s new portrait kept under wraps

Aides deny that sitting occurred

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is under further pressure this weekend after disclosures that a new “official” portrait intended to be hung on the staircase at 10 Downing Street painted the dour Scotsman in a less than favourable light. The portrait commissioned by the Cabinet Office was painted by celebrated South African artist Prudence Pennymangle Embungo during a recent heads of government meeting. Rumours circulating Westminster village suggest that Brown’s wife Sarah is less than happy to see the portrait on her way to bed upstairs in Downing Street and for the past month it has lain on top of a filing cabinet wrapped in a covering of brown paper and bubble wrap.

Sir Norman Unsmirk the former Cabinet Secretary with close contacts in Brown’s bunker revealed that aides and civil servants are only too aware of the dagae that could be caused by widespread publication of Embungo’s picture, especially as details have emerged of a clause in the current Banking Bill which will colour Britain’s economy much the same as Zimbabwe’s. Unsmirk said that the government are clearly planning to go wild with the printing presses and issue millions of new notes at a time when they expect inflation to be ravaged and overtaken by deflation, the hope is that prices will be falling through the floor as Brown and Darling make a last desperate throw of the dice to salvage Britain’s debt wrecked economy. Sir Norman quoted the offending passage from the Bill found in part 7 Miscellaneous

As part of the measures to permit short-term nondisclosure of the provision of emergency liquidity, the requirement for the Bank to publish a weekly return is removed.

“That’s it” said Sir Norman, “they intend to follow Mugabe’s way and print money until we head into oblivion. They have learned nothing from the lessons of history, it’s as though the pre war hyper inflation of Germany never existed, we will end up like Zimbabwe where the few employed who are left working for the government will be taking their wages home in wheelbarrows, yet there still won’t be enough there to buy a rail ticket!”

“The biggest crime is that they intend to keep it all a big secret by removing the obligation of the Bank of England to publish it’s weekly return of banknotes in circulation, how the hell do they expect to get away with leading us down the Mugabe route?” fumed the former Cabinet supremo.

“It’s no wonder that Campbell and Mandelson are saying that the portrait sitting never occurred” he added, “they’d like to take the portrait away and burn it in some non-descript former industrial estate in Essex, but the tax payer has already spent a considerable sum on Embungo’s piece. I guess in the end they’ll have to show it somewhere. God they look more and more like ZanuLabour everyday”

In October a South African journalist managed to photograph the portrait before it was shipped to London, and at some small expense the Corner Shop has bought a copy, this is the portrait that Brown does not want you to see.

Hat Tip Guido Fawkes

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