Look, fuck off will you? I’m about to write the most important novel of the 21st century!

There’s grave news for fans of Is That All There Is, and I know you exist because I’m still getting three sacks of hate mail a week. It’s likely, to the point of being necessary, that November will be a dry month on the blog; a word void.

Against Doctor’s orders and the advice of Celia Masarain, my psychic, who predicted that if I ever completed a manuscript the universe would scream and spasm and writhe and reach out with its gaseous pincers, plucking me from a satisfied state of rest, thieved from my own bed if you don’t mind and tossed into empty infinity thereby comforting those that mocked and said it couldn’t (and shouldn’t) be done, I’m going to take the National Novel Writing Month challenge (http://www.nanowrimo.org/) and add my own distinctive voice, yes distinctive, to the literary canon. That’s the same canon that your newborns will have to be au fait with if they’re going to pass their A-Level English Literature and get into their second choice university, just 18 years from now.

There may even be a question on this post in the exam.

You don’t need to know what it’s about, though I do and I have no idea with only 72 hours to go before I must begin writing. That’s a problem you’re thinking, such is your cynicism, but actually it’s a liberation, empowering me to mine creativity from confusion, an order of words from chaos, art from ignorance.

There’s simply no telling how astounding this work may become as I furiously pour all my hate and my libidinous desire and my happiness and my fear and my greed into it over thirty gruelling days. Perhaps you’re humbled at being a witness to its genesis and one could hardly blame you. Your own life is a senseless dance with market forces, a protracted and ultimately unwinnable war against disappointment, in which you relentlessly consume, stuffing your faces and your homes with stuff so you can feel like a part of something – a group, an experience, a fad, a cultural moment; anything to distract yourself from the fact that you’ve achieved absolutely nothing, nor will you.

You’re a passenger – passive, idle, closed to alternate modes of thought and essentially a brand in your own right. You’re used by people who identify with that brand and you use them in turn; mutual masturbation fuelled by consumerism. You band together in your little groups, talking each other up but saying nothing; anything to avoid thinking about your contribution to the sum total of human knowledge. When you die, which will be sooner than you think, that figure will stand at zero, just as it does today. The best you can hope for is to live on as a series of contradictory and distorted memories, all of which will eventually vanish when your friends succumb to the business end of dotage.

In contrast I’ll have created a work of art; pure expression and immortality in language, destined to endure for all time and likely to influence your children and your children’s children far more than your feeble parenting skills ever could. In terms of their intellectual and ideological development, I’m about to become a Father to all your kids. They may look like you, perhaps they’ll even adopt some of your mannerisms, but they’ll think like me and in turn, they’ll transmit those ideas like a radio signal beamed to a hundred million handsets; a cultural contagion that will infect peer groups, reading circles, classrooms and academia. They’ll be children born because of me, their parents drawn together by the words “Edward Whitfield” clicked through on a social networking profile. Characters from my story will become the names of your cats, dogs, ferrets and adopted ponies. It’ll be my fingerprints you see on the films you illegally download, the TV you watch and the music you listen to.

Why, you may ask, haven’t I completed a tome sooner? Well you’ve asked the question and you’re the answer. My every attempt at finding the right moment has been sabotaged by the world and its Mother. There I’ll be, outlining the masterwork and suddenly the phone rings and it’s someone or other, flapping their face into a frenzy.

“Ed, I’m going through this, my so and so did that, I’m bored, I’m depressed, I’m hungry, I need your advice on staving off these suicidal impulses – blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.” Well DON’T call me during November, because your problems are the flashing star at the summit of the Blue Peter so fucking what-a-liser. Talk to your animals or crush some aluminium cans for recycling, my art is more important than your heart.

Don’t come round to see me, as you’ve been prone to do in the past, because the door will remain closed. You may notice the light on as you approach, perhaps note movement behind drawn curtains – a silhouette of a naked man with an erection, but this is a mirage, wish-fulfilment transmogrified into waking fantasy; there is no one home.

Spare yourself the pain of rejection by factoring me out of your social arrangements. You’ll have calculated that your evening is mirthless, witless and yes, even pointless without my participation. You’re right. Nevertheless you’ll have to make your own entertainment; emancipating iconoclasm is taking place behind the scenes, culture is being warped and redefined. There’s a revolution taking place on the page and there will be many casualties, namely everything you believe in and take for granted. You don’t dare try to hold it back by reducing the time available to the author, unless you wish to be shamed as a roadblock to history. Enjoy November as it’ll be your last secure and complacent month on this Earth. Remember that when you’re priming your fireworks and enjoying a “jar” at the pub with your mates.

Good luck if you’re attempting this yourself, though not too much luck obviously because seeing you published before me would be an insult both to me and my future readers.

Take reasonable care of yourselves and I’ll see in a month…unless I give up, obviously.

How I was fired as David Cameron’s Speechwriter

For three and a half hours I was employed as a speechwriter for the Prime Minister. I consider this portion of my working life to be highly rewarding and I learnt an awful lot. Primarily, I learnt that I’m not cut out to be the Prime Minister’s speechwriter. Working from a brief provided by the PM’s policy unit (two stuffed paragraphs), I’d composed a very fine address, heavily pregnant with memorable one-liners and stage directions to accentuate impact. 35 minutes after it had been e-mailed to Andy Coulson, the PM’s director of communications, I received a polite reply informing me that I could “crawl into Alan Johnson’s arse.” The full text is reproduced below. Did Coulson and company get it wrong? Judge for yourself.

NB: Text in bold denotes author annotations. Italics are stage directions for the Prime Minister.

Key: PFA = Pause for Applause, PFL = Pause for laughter, LLAG = Look lovingly at George, IW = Incite Whoops

The Text:

Conference! (PFA)

We’re back and the stabilisers are off! (PFA) Government looks a little something like THIS… Perform “robot dance” from stationary position, just to the right of the lectern, as this is the most favourable angle for the BBC’s front-on stage cam.

This early theatre ratchets up the excitement in the hall and wets delegate’s appetites for the meat of the speech.

(IW) We’re alright! Allow hall to respond. We’re alright! Again.

(Serious Face) Now listen to me. As the first Conservative Prime Minister to stand before you as part of a coalition government let me also paraphrase John Cleese and be the first politician to say “fuck” at a party conference. (PFL)

Don’t let the naysayers spray your face with flecks of cynical drool, we smashed it – we took the opposition apart and gave them a bloody electoral lesson. Now it’s true we didn’t win an overall majority but we surely would have done were it not for the votes cast for other parties and our absolute failure to regain support in the previous two general elections, due in no small part to right wing mania which we’ve not yet fully purged and, let’s face it, may now even be in the ascendant. Let’s not forget any of that, we have good reason to be proud here today. (PFA)

Some of you have suggested to me that our failure to turn the most unpopular government in 20 years into a rump was due to not going hard enough on our core messages – abolishing immigration, strangling taxes, putting a policeman in every living room, to which I say “no you mad bastards, no! Step out of Mrs Thatcher’s imaginarium and join me in the real world.”

(PFL and force a chortle yourself, wiping an imaginary tear from your eye – only BBC HD viewers will be able to spot there are no tears but they’re very small in number.)

The truth is that we failed to gain a majority because too many people imagined we’d win outright and so left it to their friends and family to vote for a foregone conclusion. Yes, maybe greater numbers of our supporters, that’s most of the British people, should have talked to each other a little more but we’re not here to blame the electorate even if, let’s face it, they’re to blame.

We’re now part of a dynamic, fresh, lemon scented coalition, an idea so bold that it could only have occurred with a Conservative government. The Liberal Democrats, once thought to be ridiculous opportunists with no ideological core, have proven their detractors wrong and shown that when the sun sets and the fog descends on no man’s land, they’re as happy as any of us to advance toward the Labour trench, getting cut down by machine gun fire as we drag on a fine Montecristo back at the Châteaux. There may be few of them left by the time we next go to the country but their sacrifice will live long in the memory and their small but necessary role in the achievements of this government will be their enduring legacy, their gift to the nation. (PFA)

War metaphors play well with the home crowd and with each end of the political spectrum – the very rich (the As) and the very poor (Ds and Es), where notions of Britishness are inextricably (and erroneously) linked with our war record.

But let us not forget the defeated. The country has been liberated from a lazy, obnoxious and morbidly obsese Labour government, a serial fantasist with serious drug and alcohol problems.

Anthropomorphising Labour in this way is an effective device because it will allow most women watching to make a mental connection with their long term or ex-partners, a highly negative association;  the female vote being vital to maintaining our electoral advantage.

Let’s take a moment to remember what it was like shall we? The past 13 years have been some of the worst this country has ever known. Even the Third Reich only lasted 12! Do you remember how it was? Children molesting children, pensioners locked up for excess bigotry, people being prematurely buried, mass poverty, the cities of Daphon and Wendomburne falling into disrepair and disuse – who but a dwindling group of nostalgic former residents remember them now? We had jury tampering, internment, baby bouncing, cleavage prohibition, the 9 day week, the destruction of Terry Thomas’ entire back catalogue and ludicrous top down rules such as having to be sick before you could use a hospital. Well we can’t and won’t go back to that and let us say to the British people never again, the adults are back in charge! (PFA)

None of these things are true but they will chime with abstract ideas linked to Labour in the areas of social degeneration and bureaucracy that our friends have successfully promoted and are now widely accepted – useful truisms.

We may have been bequeathed the worst economic legacy on record but thanks to George Osborne we’re set to take it a stage further and that takes guts as well as ineptitude. (LLAG)

Y’know, some people, like Comrade Miliband, say we’re all about cuts and have no plan for growth. Rubbish. We know that our achievements during the Eighties and Nineties were not the beginning of the end, not even the end of the end but the end of the beginning.

This is a quote borrowed, that is to say stolen, from the 1989 movie Millennium but it’s highly unlikely that anyone watching will notice.

In 1986 unemployment stood at three million. Economists tell us that was the high watermark but I say no, four million is achievable and we’re going to go for it! Many superfluous communities were destroyed when we were last in government – batches of uneducated vulgarians trapped in non-entrepreneurial ruts and reliant on heavily subsidised state industries, but there’s plenty more fat to be trimmed – I know, I’ve seen the voting map of Great Britain! Don’t let them tell you it can’t be done or that it shouldn’t be done – we’re going to do it to the nines!

But government can’t solve society’s problems alone. We’re all in this together. During the election I went to people and said, “hey you, it’s about the Big Society” and they’d say “David, what does that mean exactly?” and I’d say “I don’t know” but people understood we were on to something, something big – it’s in the title! The Big Society may sound like an ill-defined and doomed attempt to change the attitudes of a generation toward their civic duty without giving them any incentive to do so, but it’s much more than that.

(Adopt warm expression) Just last week I received a card from a young member of an ethnic minority – a newly minted 6 year old. Her mother is now voting Conservative, which should be a lesson to other black and Asian voters living in metropolitan Labour seats. This little girl, whose name I can’t pronounce, sent me a card with a pound coin selotaped to its interior. Inside, she’d written the following: “Dear Prime Minister, I heard you’d decided to forego stimulus measures, specifically greater borrowing and quantitative easing, in favour of a harsh and potentially devastating cutting regime. I wanted to show my support and help reduce our national debt by giving you this pound. The Tooth Fairy left this for me and in all likelihood I should save it but I’m giving it to the exchequer instead, I hope it helps.” (PFL)

Well thank you my dear but sadly that pound wouldn’t even make a dent in the debt interest, grow up! Still, the gesture is The Big Society at work, individuals pulling together and giving more of their time and money to improve Britain. When I think about what it means, and I’ve thought about it a lot, I see church groups, youth organisations, book clubs, cults, online NEET communities, animal charities and underground criminal networks linking arms and helping out. They’re supporting the needy, the disabled, the mentally deranged and ridiculous, helping them to get on and pour their initiative into the gaping chasm left in the wake of government’s withdrawal from the day-to-day management of the country. We believe in it not because we have no idea how to solve society’s problems, nor because we seek to absent ourselves from any responsibility for the things that go wrong but because we want people to get up and help themselves, even if that means dealing with complicated social and economic forces beyond their control.

So, let us go back to our constituencies and tell our constituents to prepare for government! (PFA)

Tough times are coming but we’re there, taking the tough decisions and balancing the books with one beady eye on fairness. Yes it was a tough decision to withdraw child benefit for upper rate taxpayers, that’s why we didn’t tell the cabinet, but this is also the government that says hold the fuck on, we’re giving you a top up for staying married, however damaged your relationship is. Not only are we telling people how to live, we’re courageously bribing them to do it – that’s a radical government making difficult choices in the national interest! We will not turn our backs when trouble comes knocking. That’s why we’re abolishing the over 75s, axing the Moon Base project and giving Durham back to the Chinese, because when it comes to rolling up our sleeves up and kicking rump, this is the government that’s making the political weather. Get behind us and together we’ll change Britain for the better!

(Pause for standing ovation but don’t hang around, the journos are already picking over the words.)

My disastrous dinner party date with David Miliband

When David Miliband was riding high on the velvety steed of frontline British politics, getting hold of him was impossible. I’d ring him about twice a week, hearing myself say demoralising nonsense like “Hi David, Ed here – I’m having considerable luck with your answering machine, less so with you. Just thought I’d check if you were around at the weekend for some dinner, let me know.”

He’d never call back.

Things changed this week however, in the wake of his shock defeat in the Labour Leadership election. None of us knew how he’d take it. There were rumours that he’d sent Louise, the mili-wifey, down to the pharmacy with instructions to ‘fill a basket with bloody sleeping pills’. Other reports leaking out of the house suggested he was watching entire seasons of House back to back and he’d stopped mili-grooming. I was nesting my head on the horizon of Louise’s naked breast when she said something rather alarming.

“You realise that he hasn’t washed since Tuesday. He’s stalking the corridors, naked from the waist down. He’s saying awful things like ‘All Eds are bastards’ and just this morning he used the word rape at the breakfast table. Oh Edward, I think he’s broken!”

“Oh Lou,” said I, “he’s just going through a bad patch right now. He’s bound to think that everyone’s against him. He doesn’t feel he can trust anyone. We’re all plotting his downfall behind his back. It’s all nonsense of course but David’s understandably paranoid after what happened with his frère.”

“I know, I just wish I could reassure him,” she said, walking to the en suite shower, her fleshy globes gently bobbing with each step.

In light of all this I was surprised to receive a dinner invitation the next day. I suppose David wanted to get back on the horse, although that was tantamount to squatting on glue at this point. Nevertheless, when you’re down it’s important to present yourself to the world and solider on. I wanted to be a part of his social rehabilitation so I graciously accepted.

The following evening, Friday, I arrived at the requisite hour, the dot of seven, with a promising gift – a bottle of Louis Jadot Cote de Beaune Villages 2008. I got it on recommendation from a very reputable wine blog. Barely across the threshold, I noticed that his usually impeccable style had been somewhat relaxed. His shirt collar hadn’t seen the flat surface of an iron in living memory and his woollen pullover was like a chest plate of hair plucked from the scalp of a mad scientist; a kitten’s plaything. I noted shirtsleeves bound by the plastic fasteners used in paper folders, his trademark UN cuff links AWOL as he swiped the wine out of my hand.

“Thanks for this” he said flatly. Having spent five minutes in the supermarket picking it out, I was annoyed at that.

Things didn’t improve at dinner. I sat opposite David, staring into his thunderous face like a man about to be swallowed by a whale. I’d never seen such desolation. His eyes were the Nth grade of black, I mean you’ve never seen anything like it. These were sharks’ eyes – dead eyes. When he looked at me directly I felt myself age.

“We’ll be having chicken, I hope that’s satisfactory,” he said. Actually I’d had chicken the night before but it seemed churlish to bring that up now.

“This is an old Labour Party recipe,” he explained, “one my younger brother would enjoy were he here, no doubt.”

Total silence.

No one knew what to say – not me, Louise, John Cruddas, Richard Bacon or Peter Stringfellow. What could you say? Cruddas tried to lighten the mood with a round of The Red Flag, only for David to tell him that “no one was interested”. Bacon, usually good value on these sort of occasions, wanted to know if David had seen his Beer and Pizza Evening on ITV4.

“Fuck me, are you kidding Richard?”

I found myself forensically dissecting my chicken breast.

Stringfellow talked about a few of his ‘new girls’. He’d got two in, Phosphorous and Aimeeee, apparently both with “watershed tits” and no parents to worry about. Usually David would jump on topics like this but instead I watched him look through Stringfellow as he spoke, occasionally shrugging when a gap in the conversation suggested it was his turn to speak.

It was remarkable, I’d never seen anyone so bored in conversation with Peter Stringfellow.

The night was young but I was already thinking about my exit strategy. None was possible until we’d got through the sweet of course, Louise having prepared a very fine Rhubarb crumble. The question now was, would there be enough goodwill left in the room to eat it?

“I’m sorry if it’s not up to my usual standard,” she began, wearisomely, plonking it down in front of her backbench miser, “it’s just that we’ve all been so busy recently.”

“Well thank goodness that’s not going to be a problem from now on, eh Lou?”

He’d snapped that out like he was hoping to cut her with it. We were all embarrassed I think. It was at this point that I felt compelled to step in and say something – traditionally the moment when matters are satisfactorily resolved.

“Look David, I know you’ve had an awful time of late,” I began, generously spooning out the empathy, “but there’s no need to talk to Louise that way. She’s trying her best to help y-“

“Oh hush up you pompous little cunt” he said. Well, I was incandescent, yet on he went!

“Do you really think I want any of you here?” he intoned. “You lot, a bunch of fucking bores?! Let me tell me you something. When I was nineteen I had to tell Ed what his Miliband did. That’s me telling a fourteen year old how his man meat works! This is the guy that the fucking unions have just allowed to hijack my Party. That impudent little scroat, that bag of bovine cum, wouldn’t know his chin from his wrist without me. I CREATED ED MILIBAND, get it? ‘Don’t stand against Gordon’ he said, ‘don’t stand against him, it’s not the right time’ – that fuck. He always knew what he was going to do, no question. Y’know, when he was six he fell out of a tree and winded himself – he couldn’t breathe, he was in real trouble. Who saved him? Me. Big Brother. I kept him calm, I put him into the recovery position, I got help. I shouldn’t have fucking bothered. It’s not that I’m greedy or anything, it was just my life’s ambition that’s all. Nothing important. He’d have had a chance after me, no question – no question, yet he thought ‘no, I know what I’ll do, I’ll destroy my elder brother. I’ll smash those pipe dreams to bits and shove the pieces up a vagrant’s crevice.’ That’s my brother for you – a selfish bottle of liquid bastard, insipid as piss.”

With that he violently pushed himself away from the table and adjourned to his study. An ashen faced Lou had to make apologies and we were all politely asked to leave, the official excuse being “David’s very tired”.

Still, at least I’ll get another swipe at that crumble when Lou brings the bulk of it round this evening.