Writing first headline in the new land of Os

This new lark being Editor of the Evening Standard had started out rather well, he thought to himself.

His team talk had gone down a storm. London is the greatest city in the world, he had declared (there was, of course, nobody there from Wolverhampton or Birmingham to give a second opinion). It's where it's all happening. London is where it matters.

At the finish, they had applauded him and given a little cheer.

George turned back to his desk and gently stretched the red braces he had bought especially for his new role.

There were some cards on his desk, which he had appreciated. And there were some people who, he had noted, had not sent him a card at all.

His reverie was interrupted by the stampede of feet as his team streamed in for his first editorial conference, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and eager to impress their new boss.

It was, reflected George, like being in Cabinet all over again, but with rather better company. The journalists he had met so far were not a bad bunch at all. As lizards go.

Leading the way was Arthur Snodgrass - "Snods" - the news editor, normally all effin' and blindin' and Cockney rhyming slang, but who today thought it politic to soften it with what he imagined to be a posh accent. Conscious that he dropped his aitches, he tried to undrop them. The effect was somewhat random, and he ended up sounding like Harold Steptoe.

"Good morning everybody," breezed George. "I think we all know each other by now, so let's get down to business straight away. Is my tour of the presses arranged?"

"Yes," said Frank Fothergill-Haugh, the works director. "Do I get to wear a hi-viz jacket and hard hat?" "Yes." "Will TV be there?" "All arranged."

"Splendid," said George.

"I think it would be a good idea if someone took a shorthand note of this meeting. I'm afraid I don't do shorthand."

There was some consternation and embarrassment. Somebody went and fetched a junior reporter fresh out of college, who appeared with notebook and pen in hand.

Then the phone rang. "That'll be David wishing me well," said George. But when he answered, the voice at the end of the phone was strangely distant, as if from the Far North.

"Mr Osborne?" The caller's voice had that sing-song rising tone of an old lady.

"I'm having trouble with my drains again. The council is still doing nothing about it."

George was scrupulously polite to his constituent. He listened. He nodded. He was a bit busy just now, he explained, and would get back to her later.

"Sorry about that," he said as he replaced the receiver.

"Now, what's on the news agenda today?"

Snods adopted the tone and manner of somebody with a particularly tasty morsel for a pet.

"The Bishop of Lambeth has been eaten by a lion during a trip to London Zoo," he said in triumph.

George was silent, as if waiting for the punchline. Which he was. At length, he said: "What's the story?"

"Er, the Bishop of Lambeth..." Snods' voice tailed off as he realised he had lost his audience.

He tried another. "Nicola Sturgeon is giving a speech in Kirkintilloch declaring unilateral independence for Scotland."

"Where's Kirkintilloch?" asked George. Nobody was really sure. Somebody thought it might be between Watford and Milton Keynes. A map was found from somewhere and George spread it on his desk, searching with his fingers.

Suddenly he became very excited.

"Good heavens!" he exclaimed, jabbing his finger at the bottom of the map. "This is a really big story. Why was I not told before? Hold the front page!"

Snods peered over.

"You've got the map upside down," he pointed out.

George turned it round the right way. His enthusiasm evaporated. "Two pars on page 27," he instructed.

"Anything about Brexit?" he asked.

Here Snods, a true Londoner, became so animated that he forgot his attempts to be posh, and the effin' and blindin' returned.

"It's an effin' disaster guv! A bleedin' travesty. The world's gone mad!" he said.

"What do the rest of you think?" George asked his team.

"I'm frightened. Very, very, frightened," said the advertising manager, Philippa-Sue Firkin.

"We're doomed, doomed I tell you," said the circulation director, Lancelot O'Connor.

At this, the others looked glumly at the floor and began to echo "doomed" in a soft spontaneous chorus, until the effect was like the eerie murmuring and moaning of seals settling down for the night.

Satisfied, George again gazed out of the window, this time in the direction of Westminster.

As that Gothic temple of power came into sight, it was as if a dark cloud passed across his face.

He turned back to the room, and then suddenly brightened.

"That's it!" he said.

"That's my first front page headline. Splash it big, 8pt or whatever - BREXIT: WE'RE ALL DOOMED!"

* (BLOB) All the Evening Standard characters in this article are entirely fictitious, except for George Osborne as Editor, which is simply difficult to believe.