Will George listen to anything Gordy says?

"Er, yo, Mr President, sir."

"Great to see you. Good trip?"

"The strip search at the airport was, um, interesting. Your Homeland Security database was also fascinating. It's not every day you get offered a free rendition flight to Kircaladee."

"Jeez. Really? Sorry about that. But you know how it is, Gordy. Freedom is the price of vigilance. Or is it the other way around? Anyhoo, what can I do for you?"

"Just thought I'd check in, Mr President. Compliments of Her Majesty's Government and all that. Touch base, as you say over here."

"A genuine pleasure, Gord. Any friend of Tony's "

"Um "

"Whatever. You people are still the best allies we've got, my man. Never forget it."

"Mr President, we're the only allies you've got. About that "

"Later, Gordy. This your first time in the land of the free?"

"Not quite, sir."

"That's a relief. We had Putin here the other week. Met him yet? He thinks that just because we point a few little missiles at him we don't have his best interests at heart. Bastard might as well be French. Thank the Lord for the Brits, I always say."

"About that "

"Yeah, yeah: I got briefed. You want to prove that you and Blair were never joined at the hip. You want me to cut you some slack. And you want to tell me that you can't do Iraq and Afghanistan simultaneously. I get it."

"The exchange rate, Mr President."

"The what?"

"Dollar, euro, yen, with sterling squeezed in the middle. I looked after money in my last job "

"Great job, too, Gordy "

"And I have to tell you that - what's the American phrase - a shit-storm is coming. You can't go on borrowing from the entire world just to subsidise junk mortgages, wars and SUVs."

"Why not?"

"Pardon?"

"Seriously, why not? Isn't there international statesperson training where you come from? America borrows what it needs. End of story."

"But the international markets "

"Someone probably told you, Gord, that I'm not one of nature's born genuises. I've been listening to that crap for years. Maybe it's why the common folk of this great country elected me, sort of, twice over. From what I hear the whole wide world kind of works around anything I happen to do with this country's economy: that's liberty. What's that Brit phrase? Like it or lump it?"

"Mr President, there's instability "

"Gordy, there's also a war on terror. Is there some price you think isn't worth paying for freedumb?"

"We are steadfast and resolute, Mr President."

"Glad to hear it."

"But we're also a little puzzled."

"Me, too."

"Seriously, sir. Is there a plan I haven't seen yet?"

"You mean the dollar, money and stuff? You mean how I cope when the voters hate me, Congress disses me, and the Iraqians go on refusing the fruits of liberty?

That's Operation Saveass. Need to know. Cheney's got a copy, apparently."

"But I mean - forgive the rudeness - what's in it for Britain? My predecessor was vague on the subject."

"Tony was a quick study. We didn't have to tell him twice that you can't put a price on liberty. We didn't have to tell him even once that Britain's place was always by our side, no matter what. We weren't kidding. You have a better idea?"

"Domestic pressures, Mr President."

"That dog won't hunt, Gord. Tony used to bore me witless with his pressures'. How many votes did he lose, and would a single one of those little votes have caused him to give a crap? Are you a lesser man, Gordy? If you are, drop a number with the secretary as you leave."

(In this draft of the script there follows a fantasy sequence so extravagant and daft even those who remember Gordon Brown the Socialist wouldn't believe it. The columnar writing team laughed, though.) Brown (stern and brooding): "Not good enough, Mr President. Not half good enough."

"Are you yanking my chain, Gordy?"

"If you like. We've had it. We've done our bit, and then some other truly unpleasant bits. You pour billions - a few of them ours - into Iraq and you can't deal with a few thugs in Darfur? You give us lectures on terror while boys in my constituency, in my own backyard, are winding up dead in your wars? Then you debauch an entire reserve currency, and keep my people dreaming of homes to own, just to delude flyover America?

"You think Britain doesn't matter much. I'm a historian: you may well be right. But how would it sound on Fox if I called you on this, and on the rest? How would the markets respond if I went to the World Bank, and to the IMF, and to the United Nations, and made a couple of those ferocious speeches I used to deliver about superpowers and their responsibilities?"

George: "We'd run you out of town so fast your feet wouldn't touch the ground, Gord."

"Not any more. The American century is over, Mr President. You are about to begin to learn how to cope with reality. Oil isn't the half of it. You have no friends left, save us, if you're very lucky. That's just a fact. The Russians are testing your strength. The Europeans wouldn't lift a finger. China and India watch and wait. Game over, sir. You can't bomb everyone."

"We're still the biggest, most powerful "

"Tell that to an Iraqi insurgent, Mr President. It doesn't work anymore and my country will no longer befoul itself in these adventures. This is, as of now, the policy of Her Majesty's Government. We're getting out and staying out. For that matter, we are about to act against self-interested currency manipulation. We would like a little morality in our lives, finally. We know, sir, how empires conclude. Be aware."

(Here the script breaks off abruptly. Insane optimism is hard to maintain, even as fantasy. The laughter in our kitchen failed.) It would be nice to hope that Mr Brown, no stranger to the politics of the US, will exchange straight words with the President tomorrow, and tell him that British policy has been altered significantly, and symbolically. I doubt the possibility. Nothing in our little fantasy is impossible, but strange things happen to those who take the chair at GB plc. Disputing American pre-eminence is not allowed. That's odd, I think.

Boys are dying in deserts for no earthly reason. The world economy is being turned inside out because of "sub-prime" loans in Arkansas. Nations across the planet are upping their spends on hideous weapons because America is around, armed and dangerous. And there is, all joke fantasy aside, only one politician in the whole world who can now go to Washington and say: enough.

Scottish boy. You may have heard of him. Very bright. Too bright, certainly, to swallow the rubbish George W Bush has been feeding the world since 2003. What hope, Prime Minister?