Hilton-Schwarzenegger 2020

I’ve got terrible news.

For reasons beyond my control, I might never be the most powerful man on earth.

I know, I know, try not to blub. I don’t like it anymore than you do. Ever since I can remember, I’ve dreamt of ruling over all of mankind with an iron rod (so long as the rod wasn’t rusty or too heavy to wield and didn’t result in blistering of any kind).

But thanks to the combined failures of my parents and the United States Constitution, my dream lies shattered in a thousand pieces around my pedicured feet. I might never make it to the Oval Office because, typically, my mother went into labour in the wrong country.

I complained about this to her the other day in a ‘phone conversation which lasted four hours. It was the one line I managed to squeeze in to her breathless monologue: “Mother, damn you, what were you thinking?”

Her answer was brutal: “Give it up, sucker. Nobody’d vote for you anyway.”

She’s wrong, of course. I’m currently collecting contributions for the Hilton-Schwarzenegger 2020 presidential campaign. Supporters and enemies alike have dubbed us “The Dream Ticket”. Our slogan, “Keep Dreaming”, is guaranteed to penetrate the most apathetic mind. OK, so the “war chest” may presently be a recycled baked bean can, but I’m confident sixteen years of shameless fundraising will pay-off. The pennies, cents and dinars are already flooding in.

I’ll soon be forced to open another can of Heinz.

All I have to do now is smuggle myself into the United States. Shouldn’t be so hard. I pride myself on knowing more about America than the incumbent president.

Of course, America is a nation of immigrants, which is one of the reasons Europe hates it so much. God’s country is founded on the principle that poor, tired, huddled masses can pursue their dream free of social support. That’s fine with me. I may be poor and tired, but only intellectually. I don’t need a state to prop me up against the bar and I don’t want to huddle with any masses, thank you very much. The first thing I plan to do when I reach American shores is protest against big government trampling on my rights. I’ll hold up a banner, saying, “Give me citizenship, then get the hell outta my life!”

As luck would have it, there is a rich tradition of suave Englishmen crossing the pond to find their dream and bank it. A quick skim of the history books and you’ll see there’s no reason to be scared of little old me. I’m like a modern-day Stan Laurel, if a tad more accident prone.

Currently, however, my life-plan rests on the humungous shoulders of my running-mate, Arnie, governor of California. I spoke with The Terminator the other day over tiffin and cigars in one of his mansions. He said he’d forgiven me for running against him in last year’s election. He then laughed for a few hours as I tried to explain my disappointing 158th place finish and subsequent deportation.

The good news is that Arnie is committed to putting us in the White House. The idea, as yet to be fully endorsed by him, is that I am the muscle behind our campaign. With my natural charm and good looks and my relatively non-freaky body shape, I am the obvious front man. Voters would never get tired of seeing an Adonis-esque face like mine. My adorable English accent should attract millions of James Bond fans to the polls. In contrast, Arnie is a surgically-sculpted steroid-guzzling Hollywood dummy. He sounds like a machine or an Austrian, neither of which is likely to swing Nascar Dads or Soccer Moms into our camp.

Therefore, Arnie can be the Veep, the power behind the throne, the Cheney to my Bush, the man seldom seen. I plan to get round to telling him all this some time in the next decade.

Still, without The Terminator, I am nothing. Arnie is on the inside. I spend my days thousands of miles away from Washington, horizontal on a velvet chaise longue, my idling disturbed only by the patter of my butler’s feet as he brings in the occasional pot of Lapsang Souchong tea. Happily, Arnie is a hard worker and responds well to being ordered about. This week, at my behest, the wider half of “The Dream Ticket” endorsed an amendment to the Constitution to allow immigrants to run for President.

Of course, as good a running mate as he is, the guy’s not got much upstairs and somehow he managed to insist that the rule only apply to immigrants who have been citizens for twenty years. Arnie became an American citizen in 1983. I am still in England, confined to my prison of tea and scones. I hope the rotten Bockwurst isn’t trying to muscle me out of the deal. I’ll have to send my mother to have some words.

The silly strudel also made the amateur faux pas of citing Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright as immigrants who had made a great contribution to American public life. Who is he trying to kid? I told him to use better examples in future. What’s wrong with royalty like King Kong, entrepreneurs like Vito Corleone?

I’m starting to wonder if Mr Schwarzenegger doesn’t have an agenda of his own.