A document released under the Freedom of Information Act has revealed how a plan to turn Margaret Thatcher and several other senior conservative into Daleks was shelved after Tory cabinet ministers were forced to concede they were ‘too evil’. The plan was dreamt up by John Major in 1996 as a fail safe measure to be invoked if the Labour party swept to power in 1997, as was expected.
The document reveals the Major believed Tony Blair to be a ‘heinously two-faced man with almost no morality’ who ‘must be never be allowed to come to power, unless we can persuade him to join our side. If not, then we have a duty to seize control and save this country from the “Big Red Machine”. And Alistair Campbell. We must create an army of callous heartless machines, and in the absence of Hitler, we must choose our own “Iron Lady” as their leader’.
Whilst the Daleks were originally a fictional concept featured in the Dr Who franchise, the progress of the microchip and the rise to prominence of Bill Gates had persuaded senior Tories that it ‘may be possible create something so inherently evil and power hungry that not even the intervention of Noel Gallagher and Bono would stop it’.
In addition it was thought that ‘the removal all human emotion except for hatred, a process which is integral to a dalek’s superiority complex and thirst for dominance, would be unnecessary if your subject was, for example, Michael Howard or Norman Tebbit’.
However, the document reveals that the programme was dogged by teething problems. Amongst other things, scientists were unable to build a chassis to accommodate Ken Clarke’s belly, and it was finally cancelled following advice from scientists who were concerned by the behavior of test subjects:
‘Even when using junior aides whose political compass has not yet settled upon “irrevocably evil”, the Daleks are prone to wildly unpredicatable lurches to the extreme right of genocidal. One can only imagine the unrestrained destruction that would be wrought in the hands of Mrs. Thatcher, or God-forbid, Michael Heseltine.’
In a closing statement, Major describes his lament at relinquishing power and the programme’s failure, but went on to state ‘I still have high hopes for “Project Cyberdyne”. If we are to get into power again we need to create a means of hiding our true nature in a way that even the most sensitive of swing voters will be oblivious to.’
David Cameron refused to be drawn on the document, but did tell one reporter ‘I need your clothes, your boots and your milk money.’