EXPLAINING

A stand? Right, The White Stripes, outside. There's only two people that's in The White Stripes. l um. . . l admire you. l really do, l admire you. Making a stand. So, l take it, l can tell the PM that you. . . you don't want to go to Washington? See, the PM, he wants you. . . Well, he wanted you to go on a fact-finder, you know. Problems we might have to face if it all goes boombastic in the Middle East. But, you know, that's you,you're on the verge, aren't you? You're on the verge of your stand, so. . . Christ on a bendy-bus. Don't be such a fucking faff arse. Right, OK, well, when you go to America, talk to Karen Clark at the State Department, yeah? Keep away from Linton Barwick. He's pushing the war for Caulderwood's lot. l'll deal with him. He uses a live hand grenade as a fucking paper weight. That's a true story. Talk to as few people as possible, that would be best for you.

As you're not used to this, I'll go through it for you. What happens in press conference is this. A bunch of press people appear. They have things called cameras and microphones, and mobile phones, hangovers and bad breath. Then you are going to walk out and read from what we call a prepared statement. In that, you will say, _I'm really fucking sorry for sounding like a hairy arsed docker after 12 pints. _I promise that I will never call an eight-year-old girl a cunt again. 'Can we now just draw a line over this and fucking move on? Thank you.’' Everybody goes home and we see what happens. The best case is you keep your job, although you will be the Sweary Woman of Whitehall.

Because it's your job to make him look good. What kind of PR person are you, anyway? I mean, look. Hey, hey, hey, hey! Are you going to take a bad story and make it worse? You say, "Oh, hi there, everyone. I know this looks bad, but wait till you hear this. It was actually the Minister for Social Affairs and Citizenship who called a child a cunt.” So, there you are, it is really much worse than we thought. If you were to go out there and tell the truth, it would be morally repugnant. Because you would be condemning a guy who's doing his fucking best to try and make things better. You'd be condemning him to the scrapheap.

Don’t you realise we have got 17 different issues we are fighting with treasury about. I’ll tell you why I’m upset. I’m upset because these fucking morons over the treasury, these people, they are so paranoid. If you don’t tell them stuff like this, you don’t even CC or email, they think you’ve started a palace coup. You don’t seem to understand that I'm going to have to mop up a fucking hurricane of piss from all these neurotics.

I'm in the middle of slamming his smug face into a verbal deep fat fryer. You know Dan, of course, don't you? Why don't you sit down and join us? Join us! I don't know if you've met Mrs Susan Doherty? Mrs Doherty is a quiet fucking bat person, or a fucking motorway mingebag, or whatever the fuck we're calling these fickle shits this week. I'll have a fucking Fanta. OK.

Mr Ambassador, with your big, baldy head, you are spoiling us! A word? Excuse us, just for a second. Great. Well, l need it delayed now. Well, actually, two and a half hours, now that you've brought it forward.

OK, this is what we’re doing. I’m putting it about through a number of cronies. This Hewitt’s piece is a packet of bollocks. He did it as a favour to Cliff. Cliff Lawton, Hugh’s predecessor.

OK. Your phone is off, but there's been a catastrofuck here. Someone's leaked Liza Weld's PWlP PlP paper to the BBC. Jesus Christ! l reckon it's going to be on the six o'clock on CNN, one o'clock your time. That is going to fucking fist your UN vote to death. Hey, you ! Freeze! Right. Missing you loads. PWlP PlP toodle-oo. l want a fucking word with you. OK, Jamie, two jobs. Job one. Find the PWlP PlP leaker and kill them. Job one has two parts. Job two. Go to the BBC and find out who's got it there. We need them to delay till after the vote. Yeah? l love you.

Sorry, please don't insult my intelligence by acting as if you're all so naive that you don’t know how this all works. Everybody in this room has learnt (bent) the rules to get in here, because you don't get in this room without learning (bending) the rules, you don't get to where you are without learning (bending) the rules, that's the way it is.

Yeah. Sorry, Michael is quit right, I do apologise, I won't use it again, the Bottom line is, that you come out again? That's why you have to stay in Government, so that you can influence things. ln here, you can influence things, you can delay things. Out there, you're just another mouthy, shouty mad fucker who people don't want to make eye contact with. Remember Mary? Remember what happened? She took a stand on health. Everybody decided that she was mental.

The BB fucking C, yeah, I mean, they crumble at the first sign of pressure, like an old woman's hip. That's why they've got a fucking programme called Sorry! Right, the PM is coming home early, and he's asked for an audience with <señor> Malcolm Tucker. So I'm getting my paddle, Terri, I'm getting my paddle.

This could be a great deal worse. You have had a good innings, you have been here for 18 months. And you know, I have written some very nice things about you in the PM's reply to your resignation. Some very nice fucking things indeed. I had a lump in my throat. And you know why? Because no one who matters thinks any less of you over this, so far. OK?

We're old soldiers, right? This is life in wartime, okay? I mean, every now and then you're going to get an incident of friendly fire. Yeah? Good man. Yes, good… Now that you've lost Geordie Julie, the merry fucking widow, you've got a hole in your speech. Right, so have we got a contingency for that? Well, look, why don't I help you? Let's roll some tits up the flagpole and see if anyone gets wood.

Well, the thing is, people like you and I, Ollie, we need time, right? We need time to ease the transition from one regime to the next. And I've been hearing from a very nasty and very baldy little bird that we might not be getting the time that we need to make the alliances that we need to ease the transition.

Well, yesterday, the announcement that you didn’t make, today, you did. Fuck that. Look, this is what they run with. I tell them that you said, they believed you said, you don’t really believe what you said, they know that you never said, but it’s in their interest to say that you said it. Because if they don’t say that you said it, they’re not get what you say tomorrow or the next day when I decide to tell them what is your saying.

What? The actual war. . . the actual war committee? Who's going to be there? How about the rest of the committee, who are they going to be? Jimmy Osmond, Gwyneth Paltrow? lt's a diversion. The real committee, that's happening at the White House. Don't mention this to the press, OK? Don't mention it to anyone. lf the press get a whiff that there's a war committee even a cardboard one, every fucker in this town is gonna turn up and try and get on it. So no matter what gay bar you end up in, keep it shtoom. Yeah, well, l have to have a word with you. You might want to slip into your negligee.

Yes, the reshuffle. No, yes, definitely, we don't know anything. I don't know anything, so we can't say anything. But you know, even if we did, we wouldn’t. But we don't, so we both can't and won't.