A Spin Doctor writes...

IN all my years in this business, I have never been so angry. As Peter sat sobbing in my office yesterday evening, his shoulders shaking uncontrollably, it was all I could do to stop myself filling up. Do the envy-mongers and the forces of conservatism realise that there are small children walking around Belfast today who are still alive because of this man? Do they? But I choked back my tears, grabbed him by the shoulders and shook that brave former Northern Ireland Secretary like a terrier with a stick. "Look at me, Peter! Look at me!"

Peter looked up dumbly through dewy eyelashes, gulping and sniffling.

"We've been through this before, haven't we?

Haven't we?" He nodded. "And we'll get through it again. Now repeat after me, 'If you can meet those two imposters, Triumph and Disaster ...'"

"If you don't shut up with that, I think I'm going to be sick," Peter snapped suddenly, wrenching himself out of my grasp and angrily gulping down the final dregs of his citron presse, before lighting up one of his menthol cigarettes. "Oh well, temper, temper, Peter my love," I snapped.

"Temper, temper, temper, my darling.

Thank you so much for that outburst, coming as it does from Ulster's answer to Carmen Miranda. That's the sort of mercurial, quicksilver flash of emotion that's led to some pretty regrettable lapses of judgment and the catastrophic end of your ministerial career, mmmm?" Peter flinched like a lapdog lashed across the face with his mistress's riding-crop. I knew at once that I had gone too far, and we made it up with hugs.

Eventually, all crying spent, Peter and I sat down together in silence, and he extinguished his Consulate in the big onyx ashtray on my desk. "So how does it work?" he asked. "Lie low for a couple of months, low-profile advice on campaigning and then Health in the next government?"

"I'm sorry?" I asked.

"Health," said Peter, quietly. "I could accept Health. But I won't accept Culture and bloody Sport. That isn't on."

"Peter," I said, gently. "I think I can guarantee that the Prime Minister won't offer you the Culture portfolio.

Or indeed ..."

Peter looked up sharply, one eyebrow raised.

"Or indeed ... Agriculture," I concluded, weakly, pouring us both another citron presse. There was a silence. "What we have to do is look at the big picture, Peter my love. The hinterland."

"What do you mean?" said Peter, coldly.

I gulped. "Well, for example, Michael Portillo spent a lot of time reading Alain de Botton ..." I ventured timidly, and was rewarded with an ear-splitting shriek of rage and a splintering sound as Peter's fist came crashing down on the onyx ashtray.

"All right," I said softly, stroking his shoulder, while Peter, with trembling hands, tried to bandage his finger with a handkerchief. "Not that.

Not that. Let's forget about that. What I was thinking was something like getting you on the board of the Royal Opera House."

Peter looked up, reluctantly, a tiny smile beginning to play about his lips.

"Really?"

"Oh yes. Fundraisers, first nights, that sort of thing." Peter was beginning to perk up. "And then, let's say in the run-up to the 2007 election, a series of principled columns in the sabbath Press expressing your concerned backbench opinion about the Government's lack of commitment to socialism. Then, during the Conservative government of 2007-2011, you write and present a BBC serial about your grandfather Herbert Morrison. And then, for the 2011 election, your leadership bid ..." But I hardly got to this final sentence before Peter was standing, his fists bunched against his chest, smiling seraphically, in a transport of ecstasy.

THERE'S no doubt that Peter's cock-up has added to my stratospheric stress levels - that, and the phone-calls to poor dear Paul Burrell. It couldn't have happened at a more difficult time. As I intimated last week, my young wife, Normandie, has been feeling a little off-colour over breakfast. Having taken her to a Harley Street man, we established that she is indeed with child. The news caused Normandie to become incandescent with happiness and she and her sainted mama are now purchasing a range of maternity wear at my expense. It's back to 3am feeds and baby-sick stains on every single item of clothing in my possession. But it's super to be a father again at my time of life. As I said on Esther the other morning, on her "The Older Father" special, it keeps me young!

Copyright 2001
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