Lovely piece of whimsy by Frank Johnson:

His followers will hope that, when the Blairites put him on trial, Gordon Brown will show the same defiance as Saddam Hussein. Saddam, before the court this week, used such stirring phrases as: "I was protecting the Iraqi people from Kuwaiti dogs." Many of us are confident that Mr Brown will be just as scornful of his accusers.

The selected journalists allowed in the courtroom – drawn entirely from Blairite newspapers – will report him as looking "disorientated", or "thinner", or wearing "an ill-fitting suit". But the television film – admittedly selective – will allow us to draw our own conclusions.

The judge: "Are you the former Chancellor of the Exchequer?"

Mr Brown: "I am the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Can you introduce yourself?"

The judge: "I am the Lord Chief Justice."

Mr Brown: "You are a Blairite dog."

The judge: "None the less, I am the Lord Chief Justice."

Mr Brown: "You represent the coalition forces... Everyone here knows this is all theatre. The real criminal is Blair, and it's for his campaign. Blair is an American dog."

The judge: "None the less, I am the Lord Chief Justice."

Mr Brown: "Blair is a stooge of the Americans."

The judge: "None the less, he is also Prime Minister... Now, you are charged with trying to invade Number 10."

Mr Brown: "Everyone knows that Number 10 is a ridiculous little place controlled by the Americans, and is really part of Greater Number 11. My people had a right to the land."

The judge: "You are also charged with committing 5,000 stealth taxes."

Mr Brown: "I knew nothing about that until I read about them in the media. That was all Balls."

The judge: "Obscenities like that are not permitted in court."

Ed Balls – Mr Brown's Tariq Aziz at the Treasury, who this week became a prospective Labour candidate – rises from the dock and shouts: "My lord, I am not an obscenity."

The judge: "Remove that man from the court."

Mr Brown: "This is a travesty of a trial."

The judge: "None the less, I am the Lord Chief Justice."

(The case continues)