After Channel 4, what might Nadine Dorries have her eye on next?

It’s some low point in our politically fractured future when the last privatisation has come through, and crowds line the Tesco Mall waiting to see the newly rebranded monarch open the B&Q Parliament.

Westminster’s Central Lobby (sponsored by Habitat) echoes to sounds of centuries-old traditions, but some things have not remained the same. The Royal family, caught between two sides of a fierce culture war, are now a wholly-owned subsidiary of a Singaporean electronics manufacturer. Murmurs from inside the Dyson (formerly Buckingham) Palace say that the royals are not adapting well to the new reality. None like being owned by money from the Far East, except, that is, for Prince Andrew who surprisingly seems at home in a cash-based gig economy…

It hadn’t meant to go this way, not back when it was just about teaching a “liberal metropolitan elite” a lesson in British populism. After Boris Johnson started the trend by selling off Channel 4 and then the BBC in twin acts of petulant retribution disguised as crass ideology, the gloves had come off. The subsequent Labour government took to privatisation with zeal. Only this time it was the institutions beloved by the right that felt their ire. Why, they asked, should public money be wasted on anything that didn’t have 100% support from the taxpayers?

There had been protests, of course, loudest from within the Establishment. The Archbishop of Ronseal & Canterbury had appealed for calm, but his cries had fallen on deaf ears. The Department of Flog-Media-Culture-and-Sport-To-The-Highest-Bidder continued to push through reforms. The last British university was sold off to the Chinese not long after Elon Musk bought the British Library with the promise to relocate it to Mars.

From her seat in the House of Sunny Delight (formerly Lords), Baroness Nads of Anfield surveyed the nation crafted in her image. Some had accused her of cultural vandalism when she sold off Channel 4, but the Baroness didn’t see it that way. The United ExxonMobile Kingdom had hardly changed. Anybody walking over Westminster’s KFC Bridge and gazing down the PayPal Thames would still see the great old lady of democracy looking pretty much the same. The logos painted on Big Ben’s bell tower had helped fund the restoration of the old Palace of Westminster and that was surely a good thing. And people were now a lot less uptight about selling the building off to PornHub. It was certainly big enough to be home to a functioning democracy and a data centre serving erotica to Western Europe.

Really, did anybody still believe that some institutions were better left beyond the reach of commercial interests? From Sir Winston’s statue, now owned by Papa John’s and accessible on a pay-per-view basis (free with every 14-inch pizza), to the Dulux White Cliffs of Dover, the case had been proved: nothing transcended the hard value of cash. People had once thought you couldn’t put a price on a shared culture, the economy of ideas nurtured by the state, or the creativity of an independent film and television sector… but she proved them all wrong. She could and she had.

Life had also dramatically improved as a result. Didn’t Florida’s heat mean that Disney’s Stonehenge now basked under sunshine all year round, allowing people to see the ancient monument as it was meant to be seen, with a laser show and a Pirates of the Caribbean themed barbecue? Hadn’t McDonald’s fulfilled its contractual obligations when establishing St Paul’s Burger Mall? The old cathedral looked no different and was arguably more radiant when the giant golden M on its dome caught the light.

And hadn’t the English Deutsche Bank Football Team made it through to yet another semi-final? Nothing has substantially changed except a branding exercise, a few tactical decisions based on focus groups, and then, of course, some questionable substitutions in extra time that led to a German win, 5-0, on penalties.

The public didn’t seem to care. Nor had they made much fuss when the Isle of White was sold to Amazon, even if little was now known about the now secretive state. Because there really wasn’t such a thing as a “society” once a government has unpicked the traditions, institutions, and ceremonies that once served to connect people. Now, everybody could live inside their own privately funded bubble, with neither public services, public sector, nor public broadcasting to distract them.

Baroness Nads smiled to herself at such a ridiculous train of thought. How, after all, could there even be “a public” now they’d been entirely sold off to Walmart?