Once we entered Downing Street a No. 10 protocol adviser took Vic upstairs to show her the facilities in the private flat. ‘That sofa’s gotta go,’ said her ladyship. ‘So has Simon Case,’ I said. The protocol officer was shocked. ‘So new, and almost without a stain,’ he protested. More than can be said for the Cabinet Secretary. For the first few hours it was easy to keep the Prime Minister busy with congratulatory calls from world leaders. He was fine once we reminded him not to shout at them like an Englishman addressing foreigners. Emmanuel Macron was overfamiliar, Giorgia Meloni tearful – it seems she had a hot pash for Rishi Sunak – and the chap from Reykjavik went all glacial (Icelandic speciality) when we refused to talk about fish quotas. Joe Biden drifted off into a stream of consciousness about Donald Trump. The White House switchboard had confused him by saying ‘Sir Starmer on the line for you, Mr President’ and Joe thought it was something to do with Stormy Daniels. I also arranged for the PM to waste a good couple of hours with the regional mayors. Bunch of bozos. You might as well spend time with the mayor of Trumpton. Andy Burnham’s eyes dart and smoulder when he is with the new Prime Minister. You can see him thinking: ‘That should be me!’ We’re going to have to watch Burnham. And Sadiq Khan. Mind you, his personal approval ratings are so dreadful, they should prevent any ambitions. The more Khan goes about the place saying how wonderful Keir is, the more we need to count the spoons.
The Prime Minister has installed a looking glass opposite his new desk. He keeps checking his quiff, laughing to himself and throwing John Travolta Saturday Night Fever shapes. Don’t worry, I will soon knock this bumptiousness out of the twerp. The clerk of works has been asked to raise the PM’s chair on a dais so that he looks taller than everyone else. He’s almost as short as Rishi but happily no one has noticed. That can always be changed, unless he does as he is told.
Case must indeed go. Appalling greaser. He was there in the hallway of No. 10 to greet Keir the moment he entered, fluttering about, dispensing drolleries, stroking his stupid beard. I soon peeled them apart by kicking away Case’s walking stick – oops, sorry, Simon – but the separation needs to be made permanent, and soon. Pat McFadden claims I only have it in for Case because he became Cabinet Secretary when the job should have been mine. What’s wrong with that? You don’t run a bar in Co. Down without learning a thing or two about vengeance. I just need to square it first with the magic circle of former cabinet secretaries. That old woman Robin Butler will cluck and tut but Gus O’Donnell agrees that it’s time we suffocated Case. ‘Pillow job’ as they say in the NHS. O’Donnell thinks Case can maybe be made ‘head of house’ at some Oxford college. I think he may have in mind one of those secretarial colleges off the Woodstock Road.
Talking of which, Emily Thornberry has been dealt with. Good night, Lady Nugee. We have made Richard Hermer Attorney General. Nobody knows who he is. Ideal. Last thing you want is a high-profile attorney with ideas above his station. Thornberry put out a tweet talking of her ‘personal disappointment’ at not being given the job she had so long shadowed. She went on to express her ‘unstinting loyalty’ to the Prime Minister. Everyone understood that as a swipe at me but who cares? If she was that keen on being a cabinet minister, she shouldn’t have so carelessly mistaken me for Keir’s new typist when I started this job. The words ‘Fetch us a glass of water for my Alka-Seltzer, will you, dearie?’ remain fresh in my memory. At least Hermer doesn’t look like Boris Yeltsin after an all-night bender.
First cabinet meeting went fine though it had to start late because my darling son Liam – just elected as an MP! – rang me asking me where his packed lunch was. I was ashamed to say that I had forgotten but told him to take some dinner money out of the pot by the bread bin. Keir says it may be a little early to give Liam a ministerial job just yet but a year on the backbenches should be adequate. He’s so bright, so handsome. He has stuck a poster of Keir in his bedroom. We made sure eco-bore Ed Miliband was seated down at one end of the cabinet table, where cameras weren’t supposed to pick him up, but of course his ridiculous fringe jutted into one of the snapshots. He was the talk of the anteroom, having just got back from receiving his seals of office at the palace. ‘So I urged the King to install a couple of wind turbines in the garden at Buckingham Palace,’ boasted Miliband. ‘After all, it would set a wonderful example to all the nimbys.’ That gawping goldfish Lucy Powell asked how Charles had responded. ‘He just laughed,’ said Miliband crossly. Apparently, this is an old royal trick. When confronted by ideas they don’t like, they guffaw and push the politician in the chest, saying: ‘Oh stop it!’ The late Queen did it all the time with George Osborne when he was suggesting cuts to her money.
Louise Haigh, the Transport Secretary, has topped up her red hair dye. I need to have a word. Red was OK in opposition but now we are masters of the universe it needs to be green for go-go-go. Disappointing. The woman’s now in charge of traffic lights. You’d have thought she might have understood this. Had the top mandarins in for a Zoom call on the Saturday evening. Resounding cheers all round. Some were even wearing paper hats and blowing party hooters. Philip Barton at the Foreign Office (unimpressive pudding) said he had already had to give David Lammy a geography lesson. They’re going to buy the new Foreign Secretary a globe.
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