Monday
We are draped over a chair in the prime minister’s office, at a crisis meeting. I’m not sure why we are a plural. That’s just how it goes with trousers, though. We are like the Queen.
“This is out of control!” a woman called Fiona is shouting.
“Is £995 a lot,” says the PM, sounding quite bewildered, “to pay for a pair of leather trousers?”
“It’s more than I’ve ever paid for a pair of leather trousers,” said a man called Nick. He has a big beard. Maybe a Hell’s Angel?
Fiona says that Nicky Morgan’s attack on us cannot be allowed to stand, and henceforth she’s never coming to Downing Street again.
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“But she never comes here anyway,” says the PM.
“Maybe,” says Nick, “we could say she’s only allowed to come if she wears leather trousers?”
“But cheap leather trousers,” says Fiona.
“I thought they were cheap leather trousers,” says the PM.
Tuesday
We have been banished to a storage vault for embarrassing political apparel. We’re in here with a donkey jacket, a handbag, a baseball cap with “HAGUE” on it, and a selection of horrible polo shirts in varying sizes. Although apparently they’re leaving soon because David Cameron wants them back.
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“I was expensive, too,” wheezes the donkey jacket, “but everybody said I wasn’t.”
“I was just a bad idea,” sighs the baseball cap.
“I once hit a man who went on Strictly Come Dancing,” says the handbag.
It’s creepy down here. We want out.
Wednesday
Well that didn’t last long. We’re back upstairs already, on a table in the office.
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“Bloody Boris,” Fiona is shouting, “has been saying they’re bloody lederhosen!”
We are more German than we had realised. We really are like the Queen.
“Is this a political crisis?” says the PM. “I can’t tell.”
“It’s insubordination!” shouts Fiona. “We should punish him!”
“Oh, no,” says the PM.
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“By making him wear them,” says Nick.
“Oh, maybe,” says the PM.
Thursday
Downing Street is in absolute meltdown. People have been up all night trying to decide whether the PM should put us back in storage, or whether that would be a gesture of weakness and she actually now needs to wear us every day. It’s chaos.
“Leather trousers are clearly my remit,” says Liam Fox. “Because that’s what the people of Britain voted for.”
“Oh come on,” says Boris, who has been allowed back in.
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“Fine,” says Fox. “A leg each.”
Nick and Fiona are shouting at everybody. Nick says there’s a strong Ukip contingent that holds women shouldn’t wear trousers at all, and they can’t afford to lose their support. Fiona says they’ve had intel that Paul Mason has been trying to force Jeremy Corbyn to wear leather trousers for months, and she’s simply no idea how it’ll all play out if he does.
“Although he’s probably against leather trousers,” she muses, “and other forms of trousers.”
That’s when Andrea Leadsom says she agrees with The Times, that the PM simply needs to have a thicker skin.
“Crocodile?” says the PM. “But they’re sweaty enough already.”
Friday
It’s very early in the morning. We’re still on our chair when Nick and Fiona creep in.
“We need to burn them,” whispers Fiona.
Nick isn’t sure. The PM has just been at a big meeting in Europe and nobody even wanted to talk to her. And he wonders if wearing us might have made all the difference. Although Fiona says probably not, because Berlusconi has been gone for years.
“No, but listen,” says Nick. “Brexit is a shambles. Social care is in meltdown. We’re even losing councils. And all anybody wants to talk about is the trousers. They’re a dead cat!”
We most certainly are not. Before we can protest, though, the door opens and the PM and Philip Hammond walk in.
“Actually,” says Hammond, “they’re quite nice.” Then he says he used to have some in black, when he was a goth.
“Philip said I look lovely in them,” says the PM, proudly, to everybody.
“Erm, no I didn’t,” says Hammond.
“Philip May,” says the PM.
“Especially if he wants to keep his job,” says Fiona.
*according to Hugo Rifkind