The Butler Report

Dear Mum,

One of my least pleasant jobs as valet to the Prime Minister is dealing with the aftermath of his occasional temper tantrums. I seem to spend half of my evenings gluing priceless glass and china artefacts back together after he's flung them all over Downing Street.

To look on the bright side, it is saving me a fortune in jigsaw puzzles.

There are two main schools of thought about why he's prone to these unfortunate and embarrassing outbursts.

According to the Number 10 press office it's because he is so passionately committed to the causes he believes in and to driving the delivery of a fairness-based recovery.

According to the Foreign Secretary it's because he is a purple-faced baboon with all the intellectual range of a custard cream who is easier to wind up than a clockwork puppy.

He's certainly been in a bit of a mood for most of this week. It began when he was tricked into telling the House of Commons that "under no circumstances whatsoever" would he consider appointing a minister for U-turns.

As soon as they heard this, the political staff here let out a huge collective groan and began work on getting the new minister's office ready.

On a happier note, I've spent much of the week putting up bunting all over Downing Street.

The flags are red, white and blue, of course, because those are the colours of the government's new sponsors, PayDay Loans Is Us plc.

As you'll have heard, this forward-thinking company is already sponsoring the report on employment law, and from now on it will be the official partner of all government business.

Among other privileges, this entitles it to have its name included in the titles of all future parliamentary bills and for its logo to top and tail each of the commercial breaks during Prime Minister's Question Time.

Well, I'd better sign off now, Mum. The Deputy PM is already getting his monogrammed silken drawers in something of a twist about next month's doctors' strike. It's a matter of great personal concern to him because it threatens to derail his brilliant plan to avoid the annihilation of the Lib-Dems.

Every day he goes to his GP and gets a sick note saying that he's unable to work due to stress. He plans to show these to the voters at the next general election, thus proving that when all the awful stuff happened he wasn't there.

He's becoming hysterical, so I'll have to give him some of his magic tonic. Actually, it's just tap water with one of the Justice Secretary's cigar butts soaked in it overnight, but it seems to calm him down.

I'll write again when I get a moment.

Your affectionate son,

Rodney

PS.Please tell Granny I cannot agree with her when she describes our royal family as "Olympic-standard benefit scroungers," and anyway I think she's almost certainly incorrect in her prediction that Prince Philip will soon have to find a job due to his disability living allowance being cancelled.

I have looked it up and I'm pretty sure she's not correct in her claim that "having a brain the size of a sodding pea" is a recognised medical disorder.