To Dilyn - an offer of respite care

To: Dilyn the Downing Street Dog,

10 Downing Street (aka 'The Party House')

London SW1.

16th January, 2022.

Dear Dilyn,

There has, as you probably know by now, been much in the press lately about 'goings on' in your adoptive home, 10 Downing Street. All this must be most distressing for you and so I am writing today, terrier to terrier, to let you know how much I feel for your predicament, and to offer help as far as I am able. 

When, some two years ago, you were adopted by a certain then unmarried couple you no doubt had high hopes, like any dog who has endured a shaky start in life, of a peaceful and loving home with unselfish, considerate and empathetic humans.

Sadly, it was not to be. 

You may by now have twigged that, with your cutely scruffy looks, you were brought into the household principally as a distraction from habitually disgraceful behaviour of your new owner, the (for now) UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who cynically uses photos of you on his Christmas cards to promote the image of a regular, straight up and down honest family man.

You maybe hoped that someone who had already lost count of how many children he had fathered (was it five, six, seven?) would be happy to focus his limited spare time on your good self, rather than in short order to bring a couple more squealing infants into the world. 

Dilyn, it seems to me particularly unfair that it was you who was recently castrated to cure your reported 'urges', when the far more obvious candidate for neutering remains scarily 'intact' in 10 Downing Street.

And now we learn that over the past two years, you have had to put up with constant disturbance in the form of noisy 'Bring Your Own Booze' parties and other alcohol-fuelled so-called 'work events' attended by  a stream of morally bankrupt individuals, all in your own back garden. How you must have envied those pups whose owners thought it right to obey public health measures and restrict their socialising to meeting one other person and taking their dog for a walk.

Well Dilyn, I am wondering if you would like to come to visit me in Scotland for a few weeks, while your humans contemplate their uncertain future in Downing Street? We do still have a few Covid-related rules here but I am happy to say that there are no limits now on when, where and how often a dog can be exercised in our beautiful countryside. I would only advise that, when out and about, you might avoid mentioning the name of your owner too often as he has few fans, human or canine, north of the border....

That's all for now. Looking forward to hearing back from you soon.

Toodle pip!

Bertie.

Aberdeen, Scotland.