Life's Unhelpful Lessons: The Unreconstructed Male is Alive And Well, And Hanging Out in Northwick CLP.

Oh, God, my head hurts. Why do I do it? I am far too old to drink red wine if I'm to stand any chance of avoiding a three day hangover after a night out.

And what the hell is wrong with me? Why can't I just order a gin and tonic instead of red wine whenever I go to a Labour Party social? It's pathetic. I only do it to stop members thinking that I'm giving myself airs and graces, just because I work for the MP. As if that was even remotely possible, given my pathetic excuse for a salary.

Talking of which - in an admittedly tangential kind of way - it doesn't seem as if everyone in the Party understands the meaning of the word broke. Greg and I had to spend half the night listening to Pete Carew banging on about his holiday home in France, while Billy Jeffries argued the case for Tuscany.

Local councillors' allowances must be more generous than I thought, that's all I can say. Either that, or being a self-employed consultant with expertise in a pointless subject must pay very well indeed. I made the mistake of asking Pete what the hell life coaching was, and nearly lost the will to live when he explained. Maybe his clients pay him to keep quiet.

I'd happily have followed suit but, when I tried to withdraw another ten pounds from the cash machine, it seemed to have run out of money. Wouldn't you think bankers could at least re-stock the damn things to earn their bonuses?

Mind you, it would have taken more than I earn to pay everyone who was being boring last night to shut up, even if I could have got hold of any cash. Pete and Billy weren't half as bad as some of the other men, including The Boss. He spent the evening assessing the merits of various single malts, and trying to decide which of the new Party members was the most attractive.

"See what I mean?" said Greg. "That's why Andrew was so keen to have all the volunteers invited: he wanted all the young women who've joined the Party since the General Election to be here. He's taking an unhealthy interest in their development, if you ask me."

"Seems he's not the only one," I said. "Who are those two girls over there? Jim Bradley can't take his eyes off them, even though they're young enough to be his grand-daughters."

"That's because someone told him they were lesbians," said Greg. "He's obviously watched too much porn and hasn't grasped that life rarely mirrors art. Probably thinks he'll get to take them home with him afterwards. To discuss our policy agenda while wearing no clothes."

I think that mental image may have been the point at which I decided there was no option but to borrow some money to buy more wine.

"Oh, my God, Greg," I said, when I returned from the bar and gave him his change. "I still feel a bit sick. Do you have to be so crude?"

"That's nothing," he said. "Jim's no worse than the others. Pete Carew keeps asking the girls to stuff envelopes, just so that he can watch them lick the stamps. And then he stands there twirling that ridiculous moustache while they do it. It's bloody horrible to watch."

Eeurgh. Honestly, sometimes I despair of the local Party. Or of the men in it, anyway. Last night was supposed to be about celebrating Debbie Abrahams' win at Oldham and planning the next stage in the fightback against the cuts. And there's a revolution going on in Tunisia, for God's sake, and yet all the men of Northwick *CLP could think about was cleavage!

I said as much to The Boss, who pretended he was listening to me, but obviously wasn't.

"For Christ's sake, Andrew - stop looking down that girl's blouse," I said. "You're supposed to be a role model and, as for the rest of you - haven't you ever heard of feminism?"

"We used to call it women's liberation," said Pete Carew. "And a very good thing it was, too. Especially all the bra burning. Let it all hang loose, that's what I say."

"You wouldn't if you'd ever been stuck in a lift with *Ann Widdecombe," said Greg. "I'm sure that's what originally caused my *PTSD. I still can't go into Portcullis House without getting flashbacks."

At that point, thank God, Joan decided to draw the raffle, so everyone was spared further details about the size of Widdy's bosoms, but Greg still looked a bit stressed by the memory - even when he won the first prize. I don't think he felt that a free life coaching session with Pete was something to look forward to.

When he offered to give it to me instead, I probably should have accepted. It's not as if I've mastered how to run my life, after all.  Especially since it turns out that the cash machine hadn't run out of money as I'd thought - but Max and I had.

Our last twenty quid, and I spent it on giving myself a headache and watching a bunch of voyeurs in action. Some people might consider than money well spent, but I don't think I'm one of them. And nor is Max.

"Bloody hell, Molly. I can't believe you've left us with no money 'til the end of the month," he says when I drag myself out of bed just before lunchtime today. "You don't even like red wine. Or Party socials."

He's right, but I didn't do it on purpose - and there's no need to go on about it now, is there? Not when my head hurts so much. Haven't I been punished enough?

When I stagger to the bathroom and open the medicine cabinet in search of Paracetamol, I find that the answer is a resounding no.

If life coaching could teach teenage sons not to take the last tablet and replace the empty packet in the box, I'd book Josh in tomorrow.


*CLP - Constituency Labour Party. Enough said.
*Ann Widdecombe, former Tory MP, well-known for the size of her boobs, amongst other larger-than-life things.
*PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Commonly cited by Greg when he wants to take a day off.

More Muddled Political Analysis From An Insider. (Mirthless Laugh.)

God, I do wish I'd had flu this week. Or taken a day off yesterday. It's so unfair to expect constituency staff to react to major policy announcements when they haven't any time to watch the news, PMQs or even to read the papers during their working day.

I'm still trying to make sense of the Spending Review now - though that's a pretty tall order, given the breadth of its reach. The detail is impossible to understand - probably deliberately, if my long-held suspicion of statistics is anything to go by.

I gather Georgina* is being accused of playing fast and loose with some of the numbers, as The Boss nearly had a stroke over some of the stuff he said George had pinched from Labour.

My head's hurting and I just want to go and lie down quietly in a darkened room. Maybe if I took the economy with me, we might both feel better by tomorrow.

I need to get away from Max yelling at the public sector representatives on the TV, too. Every time one of them comes on, and claims that the public sector is taking the sole hit for the bankers' failures, he goes mad.

Part of me can't blame him - they do rather talk as if the private sector hasn't been feeling any pain whatsoever. Do they only socialise with others who work in the same field, I wonder? Surely they must know someone who doesn't even have a pension, or has already taken a pay cut or lost a job this year? You wouldn't think so from the rhetoric - though don't tell Max that. I really don't want to encourage him.

The worst thing about all this is that the most vulnerable are - again - the most terrified by what's going on. The expert claimants can probably afford to be phlegmatic about cuts to the welfare system - they'll just work out new ways to get around it. I just wish that, for once, attention would be paid to ensuring that it's not reducing the numbers claiming that is the focus, but ensuring that you do pay those who are genuinely in need.

So often I see people with severe disabilities and terminal illnesses struggle to get DLA, while those who have a bad back that recovers miraculously at the thought of a rugby match or a night out get the higher levels of everything going. As usual, those who are the most ingenious survive, while those who are the most honest seem to go under.

Take Pat's new boyfriend. Well, that's a bit of a misnomer, actually - as he's fifty if he's a day. DLA, Incapacity Benefit, full Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit. He hasn't worked a day in his life since he left art school thirty years ago. And how has he done it? By virtue of some very creative thinking indeed.

He sees aliens. Well, that's what he tells the Benefits Agency, anyway. Disprove that, if you can. His visitors from outer space don't stop him sub-letting his council flat, taking trips to Spain to sell the stuff he buys at car boot sales, or dealing in cannabis. (His long-term fondness for drugs may, of course, have something to do with his "illness.")

When she pops into the office today, Pat's full of how wonderful he is, even though she does squirm a bit when Greg starts ranting about having to pay for "this scrounger" out of his taxes - along with shell-suits and fat-mobiles, of course.

She looks even less happy when I ask her whether she thinks her boyfriend's mad.

"Um, no," she says.

I'm in a really bad mood so I press on. Forget elephants, I'm a bull in a china shop today.

"So, if you think he's telling the truth, isn't that even more worrying?" I say.

"How d'you mean?" Pat's getting a bit twitchy now.

"Well, if he really does get visits from aliens who do unpleasant things to his bottom and his mind, aren't you a bit worried they'll come round to yours one night to get him? You know, when he 's staying with you?"

"I hadn't thought of that," she says. She looks as if she wishes I hadn't, either. You can't say I don't have a forensic mind, however incompetent at statistics I may be.

*Georgina: George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer. Georgina is the name by which he is affectionately known to The Boss. He has an increasing problem with millionaires telling constituents that we're all in it together.

Creative Thinking in the Face of an Emergency.

It's that hellish time of year again - Parliamentary Recess, when MPs return to their constituencies, and wander around like lost souls, irritating the hell out of constituency staff and making work for its own sake. The Boss is worse than most. He thinks he's so indispensable that he cannot take even a single day off, and that we need him to open the mail and answer the phones, despite the fact that these things get done every day whilst he's at Westminster - as if by magic.

I wouldn't mind so much if he'd just go and sit in a coffee bar somewhere and take his laptop with him, but he says he likes to be "in the thick of it", and takes over my desk and my computer instead. Then he decides that I need him to dictate incoherent replies to all the letters he has already opened, or at least, those that he hasn't already misplaced.

This means that I am forced to waste time writing down notes that I have absolutely no intention of making any reference to in the replies that I will eventually write, once he's not looking. To make matters even worse, he seems compulsively driven to start swearing whenever I am on the phone to a constituent - which is really embarrassing. I have to keep explaining it away by pretending that he's the boiler repair man, and has no sense of decorum.

The Boss has also adopted his usual Recess practice of sneaking into the office early so that, by the time Greg and I arrive, he's already rifled through our desk drawers, and the fridge. The most outrageous aspect of this - at least as far as Greg's concerned - is that Andrew has helped himself to Greg's entire secret stash of Twixes, and has used up all the milk.

Greg gestures for me to join him in the corridor for an emergency meeting.

"God almighty, haven't you arranged anything for him to do?" he says.

"I tried," I say, "But bloody Carlotta wouldn't play ball. She even cleared space in his diary so he could spend more time in the office with us."

"Bloody woman. Wasn't winning the sodding World Cup enough for her?"

Greg is pacing up and down the corridor like a caged animal, and I am desperate for a cigarette. Already.

"Well, you've got to do something. I can't stand this. I may have to kill him if you don't get rid of him soon." Greg almost looks capable of murder. He has an unhealthy dependency on chocolate.

Far be it from me to boast, but I do have an extraordinary ability to think creatively in an emergency.

"Go and find yesterday's local paper, then search through it for mentions of local organisations that are complaining about something, like lack of funding," I say.

"And?" Greg looks unimpressed.

"Then phone them up, and say The Boss has read about their plight, and is very interested in the valuable work they are doing in his constituency.

"And?"

"Say that he would very much like to come and see it for himself, and could he pop over today?"

"Brilliant!" says Greg, and sneaks off into the Party office to use their phone for his vital secret mission.

Half an hour later, he comes back, gives me the thumbs up, and says,

"Andrew, aren't you supposed to be at your meeting now?"

"What meeting?" Andrew finishes my sandwich in one very over-ambitious mouthful.

"The Phoenix Project in Easemount," says Greg. "Molly, didn't you tell him?"

"God, no. I forgot. Greg has the details, Andrew. Shall I call you a taxi?"

"No, I can drive," he says. "Just put their number into my mobile in case I get lost."

Whether The Boss can drive is a moot point, but the fact that he has the option must mean that he has finally talked Trish into letting him have the car keys back. (She is a very creative individual herself. You probably have to be to survive being married to Andrew.) A few weeks ago, she developed a well-founded fear that Andrew was going to get caught drink-driving and, mindful of the negative Press coverage that would ensue, she decided to take direct action.

While he was engaged in a medicinal drinking session after a particularly hostile GC*, she sneaked into the car park, and drove his car away. She texted me to tell me what she'd done, but I didn't tell him as I wanted to see what would happen when he went to drive home after the meeting. I expected him to come roaring back into the bar, shouting that his car had been stolen. But he didn't.

It turned out that he just looked around the car park for a bit, then gave up and took a taxi home. He obviously assumed that he was just too drunk to recall where he'd left the car, and that he'd remember once he sobered up. The whole story came out the next morning when, staggering downstairs on a quest for coffee and ibuprofen, he spotted the car parked in the driveway of his house. At that moment, he really didn't have a leg to stand on when Trish refused to give him the keys back. God knows how he's persuaded her to reinstate his driving privileges now.

So, due to my low cunning, we are blissfully Andrew-free for the next few hours, which means that I can finally get round to writing proper replies to today's letters, and Greg can spend his time arranging visits to other local organisations. By the end of the afternoon,The Boss is booked up for a good chunk of the rest of this week, and half of the next one too - thank God.

Just before I leave the office, Mrs Cowan phones to apologise that her husband hasn't yet got round to signing his Data Protection form. She says she'll make sure he does it tonight, and that she'll drop it off to me tomorrow morning. Then she bursts into tears, and says that they are now being chased for mortgage arrears, as it appears that their bank hasn't even been honouring those payments.

Honestly, those bankers are such shits.  Not that I'm in any position to criticise - spending all my time fretting about not being able to afford a hotel room for a dirty weekend. I need a slap.

*GC - General Committee meeting, as usual.