Lucy Vickery

3135: Just the job

In Competition No. 3135 you were invited to submit an application letter for a job at No. 10 from a fictional character of your choice. This challenge was inspired by the PM’s chief special adviser Dominic Cummings’s suggestion, in a recruitment ad, that the ideal candidate for one of the positions on offer might resemble ‘weirdos from William Gibson novels like that girl hired by Bigend as a brand “diviner” who feels sick at the sight of Tommy Hilfiger’.

The parade of hopeful candidates included George Smiley, Gregor Samsa, Bertie Wooster and Toad of Toad Hall, all of whom were pipped to the post by the winners below who snaffle £25 each.

All resumes are phoney. I could quote you my qualifications, my lousy childhood and all that David Copperfield kind of crap but it wouldn’t mean a thing. I guess you’re pretty sick of phonies in button-down collars who’d sooner lay down the rules than play the game. I never want to end up talking in paragraphs or caring about my pension and all. The way I see it, if a government man can’t negotiate a pretty smart trade deal with Europe and still have enough spirit left in him for a ride on the carousel, laughing his head off the way my little sister Phoebe sometimes does, he’s lost. This country has plenty of phonies dickering with infographics and all. What it doesn’t have is folks willing to get right out into those fields of rye and actually catch kids before they fall off the goddamn cliffs nearby. Adrian Fry/Holden Caulfield

I wish to apply. I am steeped in Doublethink and rejoice in holding two opinions simultaneously and accepting both of them. Thus the viability and unviability of, for example, the HS2 rail line, is normality. It is no more than the fluidity of answers to two plus two or the malleability of Truth in the pursuit of Untruth.

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