Grovelling, Sycophancy, And A Potential Flaw In Andrew Lansley's Plans.

Well, if today is anything to go by, there's no way these NHS Reforms are going to work. Not that I should care, given that I probably won't have a job in politics for much longer, thanks to those idiotic GPs at Silverwood Surgery. Talk about victim culture and people not wanting to take responsibility!

The Boss is already in the office when I arrive this morning, and he's opened all the mail. He hasn't managed to lose any of it, either - more's the bloody pity.

"Molly!" he shouts from the Oprah Room, as soon as he hears me enter the outer office. "Get in here - now!"

Honestly, sometimes I could swear he thinks I'm ten years old. I deliberately take my coat off as slowly as possible, and spend some time turning on my PC and finding a notepad and pen, before I finally join him. I'm trying to teach him that manners maketh man, but it's been a pretty thankless task so far.

"Yes, Andrew?" I say. "Did you want to go through something with me? Or did you just want a coffee?"

"Bloody right I want to go through something with you," he says. "And the coffee can wait for once."

He glares at me, then thrusts a piece of paper into my hand.

"Read that," he says. "Then tell me what the hell you thought you were playing at? You've only gone and upset an entire GP practice."

"What?" I say. Probably a bit tremulously, as The Boss seems so angry that I'm a bit worried about his blood pressure. I'm sure the top of his head shouldn't be that red.

Andrew says nothing, just gestures at me to read the letter, so I obey. Though I can't believe what I'm reading - which is saying something, given the total lunacy of 50% of the mail we receive on any given day.

"But, Andrew," I say. "I didn't say that to Mr Franklin. I just told him what the hospital consultant said - that if Mrs Franklin felt her bunions had worsened significantly, then she should go and see her GP, who could advise the hospital if necessary."

"Well, that's obviously not what Mr F told the GP, is it?" says The Boss. "You bloody idiot. You've pissed off every doctor in the whole practice. Look - they've all signed the letter of complaint, individually!"

My legs suddenly feel a bit wobbly, so I sit down on the sofa next to Andrew, and stare hard at the letter, as if its content is going to have altered since the first time I read it. It hasn't.

The letter still accuses me of irresponsibility, and tells Andrew that the Practice does not appreciate its doctors being made "apologists for systems created by politicians". For God's sake.

"I did explain that it's what the GP writes in the referral to the hospital that often affects the priority that a patient is given on the waiting list," I say. "Which is true, though I didn't put it in the way they're saying I did. And, anyway, seeing as they're doctors, they must be able to tell that Mr F is a total nutter, who'd tell anybody anything to get what he wants."

Andrew doesn't say anything but I can feel that he doesn't give a damn whether I'm being unjustly accused or not. He just wants the problem solved - as usual. I'm so furious that I can't let it go, though, so I carry on regardless:

"So I would have thought that someone from the Practice would have phoned to ask me what I'd actually told Mr F before they kicked off like this, if only out of professional courtesy. That's what I would have done in their place," I say. "I always check my facts before I let loose."

I'm not sure if Andrew hears me or not, as I'm feeling a bit tearful and my voice may have wobbled a bit - I do wish irritation at injustice didn't always bloody well make me cry - but what I've said doesn't change his opinion, anyway.

"I don't care what your excuse is," he says. "I can't afford to have a vocal bunch of bloody doctors against me, so you will write to them today, and apologise. Grovel, in fact. And I want to see a copy of the letter before you send it off, so I can see whether this was only a one-off cock-up, or if you're as crap at your job as I've been hearing."

"From Vicky, I suppose," I say, as I stand and walk out of the room.

I sit at my desk, and type the most nauseatingly sycophantic apology ever written, while swearing furiously under my breath. And glaring at Vicky and willing all her hair to fall out.

Greg raises his eyebrows at me, but I'm still too cross to risk speech - so I just push the letter from Silverwood surgery over to him, together with a copy of my reply. He winces as he reads the sorry saga, then sucks in air through his teeth.

He's about to say something when the phone rings so, instead, he picks up the receiver with one hand, and scribbles something on a piece of paper with the other. Then he holds the note up for me to read.

"Total f*ckers," it says. Sometimes brevity is all it takes.

Greg's analysis makes me feel a lot better, so I'm much calmer by the time The Boss walks up to my desk. He doesn't speak to me, but just holds out his hand, presumably expecting the letter of apology. I wish a number of unpleasant health conditions upon him as I dump it into his palm.

"Right," he says, once he's read it. "Get it in the next post - I don't want this hanging around 'til the end of the day. Let's just hope it does the trick. I can't be doing with a posse of bloody GPs fomenting trouble in Northwick at the moment. They're far too damned articulate at the best of times."

"Oh, I should think they'll be too busy to worry about you," I say. "Seeing as they're going to be running the entire NHS if Andrew Lansley gets his way."

"They're going to find that a bit of a challenge, aren't they?" says Greg. "Seeing as they can't even handle justifying their diagnoses to their patients."

I don't know what Andrew says in reply, as I decide that now would be a very good time to go to the loo. And then to smoke three cigarettes in quick succession.

You'd think I'd want to avoid anything that might make me ill after today's experience - but every unhealthy drag feels like sweet revenge.

Smokers' logic is seriously warped. A bit like that of some GPs.

Bunions, HobNobs And Fatmobiles, Or How Vicky Discovers The Joy Of Helping Others.

God, there are riots and revolutions going on all over the place, but here at work, it's Groundhog Day. Or a parallel universe.

"There's an enormously fat man on a mobility scooter stuck in the corridor outside the lift," says Vicky, when she finally turns up at about 10:00am.

Greg and I look at each other, then both say,

"Mr Franklin."

"I don't know who he is," says Vicky, "but someone needs to go and rescue him. He's already knocked over the Weeping Fig."

"So why didn't you help him?" says Greg. "While you were in the vicinity, as it were?"

"He looked really grumpy," says Vicky. "And he was a bit smelly, too."

God knows why anyone who objects to either of those traits would want to work for an MP, but Vicky obviously doesn't see it as a reasonable hazard of the job. Which is how Greg and I find ourselves trying to manoeuvre a thirty-five-stone man and his fatmobile within a very confined space.

Not only is Mr Franklin no help whatsoever, but he also refuses to tell us how he managed to get through the security doors and into the lift without anyone noticing, and demands answers to questions about Coalition policies while we struggle to turn him around.

After he's covered bankers' bonuses and VAT, he starts on the NHS. It'll be the Ambulance Service next, probably when Greg and I have to be carted off by paramedics after collapsing with exhaustion.

"What are these reforms going to mean for my wife's foot operation?" he says. "I suppose they're bound to be an improvement, seeing as your lot did nothing to speed things up."

"Oh, I don't think that's true," says Greg, jerking the scooter rather viciously.

"Ow," I say, as Mr Franklin's shopping bag falls off the handlebar and lands on my foot.

"Watch out, you idiots!" says Mr F. "My HobNobs'll be nothing but crumbs by the time you two have finished."

Greg looks as if he can't think of anything he'd like better than to crush Mr Franklin's metaphorical HobNobs - if he could find them amidst all the extraneous flesh - so I have to step in before things get completely out of hand.

"Well, has your wife been back to see her GP, as I suggested?" I ask. "I did explain that she needed to tell him if her feet had got worse, because it's usually what's written in the GP's letter of referral that signals to the hospital how urgent a patient's case is."

"Saw the doc at the end of last week," says Mr Franklin. "He said he'd see what he can do - but he told me he's going to write to your boss, as well. He didn't look very happy, so he's probably going to give you a bollocking for doing bugger all to help."

"Um, I'm sure that's not true," I say. "Because we have done something. We wrote to the hospital about your wife's bunions ages ago, if you remember? And the Consultant's reply suggested that your wife see her GP again so that any changes to her condition could be assessed. Which was why I advised you to tell her that."

"Humph," says Mr Franklin. "All you lot do is pass the buck, isn't it? My Rose's feet are giving her gyp, and now her bloody cooking's suffering too."

Greg and I look at each other for a moment, but neither of us can think of a relevant response. Or not one's that's politically-correct, anyway - so Greg settles for crossing and uncrossing his eyes while grimacing instead.

"Was that everything you wanted to talk about, then, Mr F?" he says as, with a burst of energy born of sheer desperation, we finally manage to turn the scooter around so that it's facing the lift. He doesn't wait for Mr Franklin to answer before he says:

"Yes? Oh, good. Bye, bye, then."

He gives the back of Mr Franklin's seat a congratulatory slap while I press the button to summon the lift. Then we both leg it down the corridor as fast as we're capable of moving - which isn't very fast at all, as we're both completely knackered, and one of us is gasping for breath. I must give up bloody smoking.

We've almost made it to the end when the lift goes ping, and a plaintive sound assails us:

"Hang on, you two - what do I do when I get to the ground floor? You meeting me there in case I get stuck again?"

Greg turns round, and says,

"Oh, no - don't worry. There'll be a nice girl with long brown hair coming down in a minute. Just tell her we said that she'd been sent to help you. She's much stronger than she looks."

I raise my eyebrows, but Greg just taps his nose and winks. Then, as soon as we walk back into the office, he rushes over to his desk, and hides all of today's newspapers in the bottom drawer.

"Where the hell have the papers got to?" he says, rather louder than necessary.

Vicky and I both shrug, at which point Greg blames the disappearance on someone from the Party offices, and asks Vicky to go and buy some more.

"It's an emergency, so if you could do it straightaway, that'd be great," he says, as he puts a ten pound note into her hand. "A constituent said there was a big piece about Andrew in one of them, but I'm not sure which."

"Ooh, lovely," says Vicky, for whom the word gullible occasionally seems to have been created. "Maybe there'll even be a photograph!"

"Stranger things have happened," says Greg, as Vicky heads for the stairs and her date with destiny.

She doesn't come back for a very long time and, when she does, the look on her face suggests that this is yet another of Greg's good ideas that I'm going to regret going along with. Especially when she discovers that there isn't even a single quote from The Boss in any of today's editions.

How can she still not have realised that that's something to be very, very grateful for - unlike the opportunity to get up close and personal with a certain biscuit-loving constituent who's rather challenged on the personal hygiene front?

Who appears not to realise how lucky he is that he doesn't need to set himself on fire in order to make his voice heard. Unlike some poor buggers.