Mandelson uses his ugly schtick

Wednesday Bumped into Dame Cameron in the queue for the ladies (the gents was temporarily closed due to a day's extraparliamentary earnings having accidentally fallen out of Hague's back pocket, blocking the pipe).

Cameron has taken to cowering whenever he sees me and begging me not to chuck his PE kit on the roof. Today he was not in the mood for tomfoolery, however.

"It's these bloody opinion polls," he moaned. "I'm never going to be prime minister at this rate. And you know whose fault it is, don't you? I'm stuck with a shadow chancellor who can't add up to three without taking his trousers off!"

I had precious little sympathy to spare.

"How do you think I feel?" I asked him. "My only opposition is you and Osborne, and I still can't get ahead in the polls - it's humiliating."

Thursday Election planning meeting. Mandy outlined our strategy.

"We can't attack the Tories for promising cuts, because we're doing the same," he explained. "So, instead, we attack their cuts on the grounds that they're getting rid of all the nice people that voters depend on - nurses, librarians, primary school teachers, lollipop ladies."

One of the Milibands raised his hand.

"But who are our cuts going to get rid of, then?" Mandy smiled. Then he unveiled his master stroke.

"We promise only to sack nasty, ugly people," he said. "We're going to comb through the public services and weed out all the ones with squints, funny teeth or bad breath. All the ones who don't like puppies or forget to send Mother's Day cards. We'll sack all the men who are bald but have long hair at the back and all the overweight women who wear a dress that's one size too small for them."

He gazed around at us in triumph.

"Who is going to come out on strike," he concluded, "for the reinstatement of someone with big feet and spots who never turns up at anyone's leaving do - irrespective of whether he's a paediatric anaesthetist?"

Friday Darling was very excited about Germany's new plan to end the economic crisis in euroland. Apparently they're advising people to start work earlier and finish later.

I scratched my head. Wouldn't that mean that workers were producing even more things than before?

"Exactly," said Darling, "which is wonderful, isn't it? I mean, everybody likes things, don't they?"

I tried to figure it out. People working longer hours for the same money. Thus yet more goods on sale with consumers no better able to afford them. Result, surely, is falling prices, smaller profits, less investment, fewer jobs...

Darling stuck his fingers in his ears. "La-la-la," he cried. "La-la-la, I'm not listening. You're saying wrong stuff, and I'm going to tell Mandy!"

Saturday In a quiet moment, Mrs Gordon and I reflected on the sad death of Michael Foot.

"Just imagine," said she, "if he'd won in 1983 with that manifesto - a public bank operated through the Post Office, tighter controls on bank lending, public services renationalised, Britain out of the EEC, massive investment in key industries."

I shuddered. "I know," I agreed. "This country could have been in a right old mess!"