Wheels fall off Tony's election bandwagon (Pub-friendly) [The Rockall Times]

With his menacing mugshot airbrushed out of the manifesto to avoid frightening the voters the notorious New Labour war criminal Tony Blair has gone to ground with his core battle unit at the high-security coastal retreat of St Alwell. Taking the advice of his campaign co-ordinator he'll be recharging the batteries well away from the electoral fray and lightly exercising his dodgy ticker with a spot of golf and billiards before embarking on the rigours of a full third term.

Last week I caught up with the Blair bandwagon at the luxurious clifftop hotel housing his campaign headquarters and dominating the exclusive maritime resort. As I edged the conversation towards the dangerous waters of religion I overstepped the mark and uttered the G word, incurring the wrath of alert spin doctor Alastair Campbell, who had the Prime Minister whisked away before he could confess to occasionally hearing an almighty booming voice in his head telling him the right thing to do.

Campbell, Milburn and a host of equally hardened communicators now formed a threatening circle around me. Following Campbell's lead they slowly, deliberately, took off their jackets and were rolling up their sleeves.

"No dirty tricks, mind," Alastair warned his men. "Let's make this a clean, bare-knuckle punishment beating."

"But hang on," said Milburn, anxiously looking around. "Where's Tony gone?"

Campbell smote his forehead in disbelief. "For Christ's sake, Alan, get a grip! You know he can't be a party to this." Then with a wink and a mischievious grin he added: "He's gone upstairs for a debriefing by the campaign co-ordinator."

The effect of this cheeky aside on Milburn was astonishing. As the enormity of the betrayal sunk in his eyes bulged, his face turned an ever more livid purple, until he could hold it in no longer and the room reverberated to a gut-wrenching howl of despair.

"I'm the campaign co-ordinator!" he wailed from the depths of his tortured soul before lunging headlong at the smirking press officer, arms flailing wildly in an unco-ordinated frenzy that failed to land a direct punch on its target. Campbell stood hands in pockets, intact under the impotent assault, exchanging amused glances with his henchmen.

"It's me, it's me, I know it is," blubbered the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, fists pummelling weakly on his tormentor's impassive chest. "Tony said I was, he promised!"

As the wretched ex-co-ordinator slid down Campbell's rock-hard legs in a sobbing heap to the floor I took the opportunity to slip quietly away, deeply disturbed by what I had witnessed. Hours later, showered, dined, and with a restorative Scotch in hand I was still haunted by that heart-rending refrain of "it's me, it's me," the pathetic spectacle of his pristine coiffure getting all mussed up on Alastair's trouser leg, marking surely the last pitiful moments in the tragic decline and fall of a once almost mediocre politician.

The next day the mood in St Alwell had lifted. After a bracing morning stroll on the clifftop path that bordered the grounds I returned to my room to find a resplendent mauve envelope slipped under the door — a note inside bearing the Prime Minister's insignia with handwritten "apologies for my rude disappearance last night" and inviting me to tea in the Hinduja Lounge, signed: "Ever, Tony." It seemed I was persona grata after all.

As I paused at the threshold of the vast, expensively furnished lounge I met Campbell on his way out. He gave the merest nod of recognition and barked: "He's over there with the campaign co-ordinator. No, for Christ's sake..." he grabbed my head and forced it into the right direction. All I could see, far away across the expanse of Axminster carpet, was the back of a distant sofa with two heads leaning towards each other, almost touching. "Yuk!" snorted Campbell, embarrassed as always at any public display of affection, and went on his way.

It was true then. The Prime Minister and his dark, brooding, maddening, but deeply devoted right-hand man at the Treasury were now inseparable, snatching every possible moment to be together. Between tender embraces Tony and Gordon were working together in exquisite harmony as never before on the finishing touches of the campaign. Those cynical commentators who had sneered at the ravishing Minghella video should be deeply ashamed.

The thick pile of the carpet muffled my final approach. Something was oddly wrong. Had somebody cropped Gordon's wild, flowing dark locks, dyed them a mousey, nondescript shade, taught the Chancellor to rest his head on his companion's shoulder in that gentle, intimate way?

As I rounded the sofa, was there a suspicion of hand-holding? But it was the face which made me gasp. Not Gordon at all, but instantly recognisable nonetheless.

Tony showed no sign of embarrassment. Rising with with practised aplomb he greeted me warmly. "Dick, I'm so glad you could come, I'd like you to meet my dear friend Charles."

I shook hands with Major Charles Ingram, the mercurial entreprenner whose ingenious business venture had earned him a small fortune in the space of an hour's TV in the early noughties, only for him to lose everything on a legal technicality a few days later. Now rebranded as the hugely popular Labour candidate for Coventry North East, he had clearly found his true métier, and was widely tipped for a top Cabinet post in the first reshuffle after the election.

According to rumour this highly respected Svengali had penetrated the Blair inner circle some months earlier, exerting a particularly hypnotic effect on the womenfolk at Number 10. Thankfully, that's where they had been persuaded to stay, to prevent any foolish distractions for the Major at this critical time and ensure that his co-ordinating skills would be exclusively devoted to the Prime Minister's re-election cause.

I was offered an armchair and settled down to a delightful tea with the happy pair. Tony was in playful mood, full of light-hearted banter. "Dick, it was glorious last night when you used the G word. The look on Alastair's face! Oh you should have been there Charles."

The stern look on Ingram's face told me that he couldn't agree more. Given half a chance he'd have nipped this dangerous new liaison in the bud.

Tony, with his sensitive feelers, picked up on it too. "Oh Charles, don't be like that. I can't bear to see you sulk." He stroked Ingram's arm placatingly. I'd never seen this softer side of the Prime Minister and it was a joy to behold.

"Honestly, Charles," he continued, "Dick's use of the G word was nothing compared to your exquisite debriefing afterwards." The soothing words were beginning to bring Ingram round. He consented to return his partner's gaze. "Nobody debriefs as well as you Charles," the Prime Minister assured him. "Well, there was John of course — oh, what an expert tongue he had on him!"

Tony: Wistful Tony paused with a wistful look in his eye, reminiscing no doubt on the exemplary oral skills of Joint Intelligence Chief Sir John Scarlett who had bent over backwards to pleasure the Prime Minister during the run-up to the September dossier of 2002 and subsequently been promoted to Head of Fellatio at MI6.

"Oh Dick," he turned to me, "I'm so bored. The others are dashing around all over the country and Charles won't let me go anywhere. Do let's go somewhere Charles."

The campaign co-ordinator sighed. "Look, the best I can offer you Tony, is to sneak you into a hustings somewhere at the back where you won't be recognised. Where would you like to go — Leicester, Wembley...?"

"No, Charles, you don't understand. I'm bored with Britain. I've done this country to death. Let's go for a long weekend to Paris, just you and me."

It seemed a splendid idea. Surely this was just what they needed to cement their relationship, yet Ingram was strangely unmoved.

Tony brought all his famed persuasive skills to bear in a bid to swing the decision his way: "It's springtime Charles. Say what you like but you can't beat Paris in the Spring. I'd so like to show you my favourite shops along the Boulevard Haussmann."

Still no encouragement from Ingram. Tony was forced to concede ground. "There's always Rome I suppose," he suggested reluctantly. "Athens, Berlin even — it's up to you Charles, you decide — where shall we go? What's it to be, Charles, tell me, tell me..."

"Definitely not Paris!" Ingram announced so abruptly that I choked on my tea and coughed.

Tony was stunned. It was obvious to me that his heart was set on the French capital as the only truly desirable desination of the four.

But not to Ingram. "It could be Athens, I'm not sure, I think it might be Rome..." he floundered. He seemed to be fishing for something, a sign of confirmation, when the choice was so blindingly clear.

"Wait, I've got it now," he said, "Haussmann was it, Haussmann — Berlin then, or maybe Athens..." He went through the options slowly, deliberately, "I think it's Athens, or it might be Rome... no it's got to be Berlin."

Tony and I exchanged a horrified look. The worst possible choice of the four. How could he be so insensitive, so unromantic? Would their hearts be sundered over this stupid misunderstanding?

"Much better than Paris," Ingram added for good measure.

I coughed, this time deliberately, trying to edge my way into the conversation, to steer him away from his fixation with the prosaic German capital and towards the city of love...

Finally Tony cracked. "I can't bear it, Charles! You dismissed Paris, you plumped for Athens, then you went for Rome, finally you decided on Berlin, then you went through all the options again — don't do this to me Charles, give me your answer now!"

"All right, all right," said Ingram, "Just let me think — it's got to be... Berlin!"

I couldn't let this happen. "No!" I burst out, somehow strangulating the word inside a cough. It was an enormous risk. Surely the Prime Minister would detect my desperate attempt at coaching his beloved, overstepping the mark once more by intruding into the affairs of his heart? But he seemed too wrapped up in the intensity of the crisis to hear anything except the word he was aching to hear from Ingram's lips.

Suddenly, when it seemed that all was lost, the tiniest glimmer of awareness flickered in Ingram's dull countenance. "Hang on, hang on," he said, "Wait just a minute, I feel a sub-strategy coming on, yes, yes... I've got to rethink here, now what were those options again?"

I didn't dare breathe. Was the heartache behind them? Might they have turned the corner and it was all about to come good?

Wheels fall off Tony's election bandwagon

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