Monday
Jeremy turns up this morning wearing shorts, a cricket jumper and a fisherman’s hat. God knows why. He says we need to talk about George Osborne’s fiscal charter. And our big U-turn. And how we’re going to sell it at our meeting tonight.
“It’s not really a U-turn,” I say. “It’s just that I hadn’t read it properly.”
Jeremy says he’s not sure this sounds much better.
“It’s a new, honest politics,” I tell him.
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Jeremy says still, though.
“We’re just rebelling against the leadership,” I tell him. “Like we used to.”
“But we are the leadership,” says Jeremy.
Anyway, I tell him, all that “for” and “against” stuff is old politics. It’s binary. These words mean different things when they come from us.
“You mean like the way we were against Hamas and the IRA?” says Jeremy.
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“Exactly!” I say.
Tuesday
The meeting didn’t go well. Some of our MPs are openly calling us a “total f***ing shambles”. So, this morning, we’re scrambling to find somebody to put on the radio. I’m thinking Diane Abbott.
“Not you?” says Jeremy.
“Seriously?” I say. “And waste the trust-inspiring radio gravitas of Diane Abbott?”
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Jeremy says we just seem to be putting her up quite a lot, lately. What about Tom Watson?
“He would,” I say, “but apparently he’s been warned by people, who really would know, that his life might be in danger if he does.”
“What, again?” says Jeremy.
Wednesday
A total of 31 Labour MPs voted against us. Jeremy, who turned up this morning in his dressing gown, says he’s completely lost track of whether they’re rebels or not.
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“For who is more rebel?” he says. “The rebel, or the rebel who rebels?”
Sometimes he really does remind me of Obi-Wan Kenobi.
“Listen,” I say. “It’s perfectly simple. They’re not the rebels. We’re rebels. And if you rebel against a rebel then you aren’t a rebel at all. You’re a Tory.”
Jeremy says that seems a bit harsh. Some of them did ask permission. And, if you ask the rebels before you rebel against the rebels, don’t you get to still be a rebel after all?
“You’re not making sense,” I say. “You’re doing too much. You need to offload some of the burden on to the shadow cabinet.”
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“But they’re all rebels!” shouts Jeremy.
“Only the good ones,” I say.
Thursday
Hilary Benn drops by and says he’s worried about Momentum. This is the grassroots campaign we’ve set up, to continue our unstoppable reform of the Labour party. We’re very pleased with the name. We also considered “Plunge”, “Plummet” and “Death Spiral”, but we felt they might have negative connotations.
“You’re not much of a webel,” says Diane.
Hilary says he doesn’t know what that means.
“You’re not much of a Benn,” I say.
Hilary says that’s quite offensive.
“You’re not even much of a Hilary,” says Jeremy.
Hilary says that’s true, but not really relevant.
Friday
Jeremy turns up wearing two halves of two different suits, flip-flops and a shirt covered in gravy. He seems depressed.
“Maybe we’ll never get rid of the Tories,” he says.
Of course we will, I tell him. We’ll drive them off the committees and deselect them in the constituencies. We’ll frustrate their prospects in the party and shame them on Twitter when they vote the wrong way. We’ll take our party back.
“I meant the actual Tories,” says Jeremy.
“Oh,” I say. “I’d forgotten about them.”
*according to Hugo Rifkind