Monday
I’ve summoned our spy chappies in for a dressing down. Grey little men.
Hush hush.
“Look here,” I say, crossly. “The more I learn, the more I think this country has really taken its eye off the ball with these Russian oligarch fellows.”
One of them says it’s a terrible failure of intelligence.
“Yes!” I say.
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“As in,” he says, “your intelligence.”
“Balderdash,” I say. “How was I supposed to know how bad it had got?”
“Because we told you,” says one of them.
“Repeatedly,” says the other. “And you overruled us.”
“Hmmm,” I say.
Then I ask if it would help if we put together a big meeting of Russians with Kremlin links, so this can all be thoroughly tackled. And they say it would, yes.
“Excellent,” I say. “Evgeny and his dad can host it in their palace on Lake Como. Lots of girls. Don’t bring your wives.”
Tuesday
Michael Gove drops by and says that squatters have taken over Oleg Deripaska’s mansion, and he’s not sure what we should do.
“Tricky,” I say. “Weren’t you on his yacht?”
Michael says that was George Osborne. And that nobody invites him onto yachts at all.
“Like, ever,” he adds, a bit tearfully.
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Then he says he’s actually thinking of suggesting we seize homes like this and use them to house refugees. But he’s also worried that some of them might be places where I regularly play tennis.
I shrug.
“Doesn’t mean I know who owns them,” I say.
“Will anybody believe that?” he says.
“They did with that Caribbean villa,” I remind him.
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Wednesday
And now I am flying to Riyadh for a very important chat with my old friend Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. Although there are some formalities to get out of the way first.
“Obviously you’ll have to say you chided us about human rights,” sighs MBS.
“Consider yourself chided,” I say.
“And also,” he yawns, “you’ll want to talk about the killing of that journalist.”
“Nobody died,” I say. “And it was only ever going to be a couple of black eyes and a cracked rib.”
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“I meant our one,” says MBS.
“Whoops,” I say.
“But now that’s all dealt with,” says MBS, “why are you here?”
“Oh,” I say, “because the world needs Saudi Arabia’s help in order to end its reliance on energy from a murderous regime.”
MBS scratches his head.
“Can’t lie,” he says. “That sounds a bit nuts even to me.”
Thursday
Back home. Video call about Ukraine with Emmanuel Macron. He’s dishevelled and unshaven, and says he’s appearing like this in tribute to the wartime demeanour of Volodymyr Zelensky.
“As I assume are you,” he says.
“Um,” I say.
Afterwards, Liz Truss and Dominic Raab drop by to brainstorm how the government can best benefit from the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
“She’s such an inspiration,” says Dominic. “I wonder if she’ll agree to a joint photo?”
“Of course I will,” says Liz. “Let’s take it now.”
Friday
The two spy chaps are back. This time, they’ve asked Dominic Raab and me to hold a Zoom meeting with Priti Patel and Ben Wallace. There’s massive concern about the way they’ve both recently been conned into fake online meetings with a guy pretending to be the Ukrainian prime minister.
“Actually no offence actually,” says Priti, “but how do we know you’re really Boris Johnson?”
I’m so taken aback that I just stammer incoherently for almost a minute.
“I’m sure it’s him,” says Ben.
“Anyway,” I say. “It’s time to be careful. So from now on, we do exactly what British intelligence tells us.”
“But some Brits are more intelligent than others,” says Dominic, sounding worried.
Then one of the spies says they really were quite taken aback when I ignored their advice that Evgeny shouldn’t be made a peer, however much I enjoyed joining him for wild weekend breaks.
“It wasn’t about that!” I snap. “Honestly. Why would you have thought I’d abandon all judgment, integrity and gravitas in the highest office in the land, just for a few fun parties?”
“At that stage?” says the spy. “It was really just a guess.”
*according to Hugo Rifkind
