When I Am King
Esquire June 2000
How would you re-decorate Buckingham Palace?
With a huge banner saying "Beds! Beds! Beds!"
What would be your mode of transport?
All roads are to be re-designed along the lines of the Log Flume at Alton Towers and the Astroglide at Billing Aquadrome.
What law would you most like to see passed by parliament?
The Tobin Tax(named after Nobel Prize economist James Tobin) could change the world. The tax on currency speculation. set at a mere quarter of one percent, would earn $250 billion per year which, the UN says, is enough to wipe out poverty worldwide. Plus it's a double-whammy: currency speculators' $1.5 trillion dollars a day gambling habits destabilise national economies and trigger crises that create unemployment and social collapse. The Tobin Tax would save us from the worst excesses of the "casino economy". I'd also like the aboliton of all corporations.
Who would be your prime minister?
Subcommandante Marcos (EZLN)
Who would you have as your closest advisers?
Noam Chomsky and John Pilger.
What would be the new national anthem?
Well, let's not be too hasty here. From my side of the balcony this song sudenly appears tuneful, uplifting and with fine lyrics on which you would all do well to ponder.
Are there any laws you would veto?
Chris Evans' last-minute reprieve.
And the new Legislation Against Terrorism Bill - which re-defines destruction of property as terrorism and will effectively outlaw Greenpeace, Earth First! anti-GM campaigners and the whole tradition of non-violent direct action.
Who would you send to the Tower?
Any tourists gullible enough to pay ten quid for a ticket.
Which king will you model yourself on?
Billie Jean King.
Who would you invite to your first garden party?
First we turn London into a garden. Then the parties just happen, and at one of these I shall be conducting the arranged marriage of Michael Fagan and Betty Battenburg, formerly of the Windsor Saxe-Coburg's.
If Ralph Steadman drew a caricature of you, what would it look like?
Like all his other ones.
Who would you give a peerage to?
I would abolish all peerages except Lord Lawson's - and just leave him sitting there on his own like the cunt he is.
First official engagement?
The breaking off of diplomatic relations with the United States until such time as they stop being the world's number 1 perpetrators of human rights abuses.
What would you do if parliament tried to abolish you?
Point out how it's me that stops them getting their hands dirty by going to all the arms fairs and meeting the Saudi royal family and military dictators the world over.
Who would you appoint as your successor?
If I go, I'm taking the whole kingdom down with me! You were nothing before me! Nothing! You toilets!