The Scene: The Election Strategy and Excuses Section of the Democratic Party’s Central Planning Committee.  A younger member is enthusiastically expounding his latest Great Idea.

No, no, hear me out.  This one’s a winner.  We’ll never have to lose another general election again.

But we’re not Catholics.  What a Papal Conclave got to do with us?

But we’re not vote-winners either.  Do you want to go through that humiliation every 4 years?  Losing to whatever joker he decides to put up?  You’ve seen the numbers.  Outside the South and Bangkok we’re buried.  And even there …

Hey, we just won governor.

By some mysterious last-minute surge for a candidate we didn’t want anyway.  We can’t bank on that happening again.  No but listen, this Pope thing got me thinking.  All this ceremonial fol-de-rol was a stroke of PR genius.  It was all over the media, they lapped it up.  You watched it, didn’t you?

Well, yes, it was sort of riveting.

And they got who they want.

How do you know this Francis is who they want?

Well a, they voted for him and b, it didn’t really matter.  115 aging males to choose from and every one a Catholic.  How could they go wrong?  Well, once they’d filtered out any of them who’d been opening their flies to the altar boys, of course.

But how would this work here?  

It’s perfect.  We have to have the equivalent of the College of Cardinals, only we’ll need another name of course.  I thought ‘National Statesmen’ would do it.  

‘National Statesmen’?  But there’s only one National Statesman, isn’t there?

Exactly, that’s what gave me the idea.  Who better as a model?

But if we only have one and they have a hundred and fifteen …

Yes, we will need to make some more.  There’s a number of ways we could do that, while still maintaining strict QC …

QC?

Quality Control.  See, every time we need a new PM, these National Statesmen will be choosing from among themselves, so they’ve all got to be proper PM material.  

Just a minute.  I knew there was something bothering me.  StatesMEN?  Doesn’t the constitution say anything about woman having equal rights?

Sure, no problem.  The Church being what it is, nobody gets wound up because there are no women – well, bar the nuns doing the cooking for the men, of course.  But we can add half a dozen or so women, just to sort of show willing.  I’m sure somebody’s got a wife or a sister somewhere who’s half-way presentable.

But would half a dozen do it?  

Oh come on, how many female MPs have we got now?  We keep coming bottom of the surveys and nobody seems to bother.  See, that’s the beauty of the Catholic model.  The conclave doesn’t have to be representative.  A quarter of the cardinals in there voting for the Pope were Italian, but Italians are only 5% of Catholics worldwide.  

See what you mean.

But who chooses these Cardinals?  

Ah, that’s the beauty of it.  The Pope does.  So once we’ve managed to create the first batch of National Statesmen, …

… and Stateswomen …

Granted.  It then becomes sort of perpetual motion.  And there’s still a vote so we can carry on calling it democracy.  But we are guaranteed a never-ending stream of proper persons to rule the country while everybody’s attention is on something else.  

Like what?

Well, we’ll have to invent a lot of fancy dress and choreographed ceremonies that go on and on, but we’ve got the Thai public used to that.  I’m sure the Palace will come up with some nice long Sanskrit names for stuff.  But I do think we have to copy this back smoke, white smoke thing.  My word, I couldn’t believe how many times the TV presenters wanted to explain that to us.  

Hmm.  Well, I can see a few stumbling blocks but it sounds more hopeful than losing election after election by the current system.  Have you drafted a rough outline?

Better than that, I’ve written the necessary constitutional amendments and sent them off to the Council of State for vetting.  I’m expecting the all clear any minute.  [Enter messenger stage right]  Ah, here it is.  Let me just check …

What do they say?

Oh bugger.  It says ‘while the draft constitutional amendments appear compatible with the democratic form of government with His Majesty as Head of State, and embody a commendable intention of ensuring responsible political leadership in perpetuity, the proposal must unfortunately be rejected.’  What?  Hang on … Oh no.

What’s the problem?

They’ve thrown it out on environmental grounds.  ‘Pollution control regulations for the area designated, being neither a temple crematorium, government-managed rubbish dump or rear end of a Bangkok bus, strictly forbid the deliberate release of smoke, black or white.’