The Birth And Death Of The Joshua Bennett Economic Think-Tank, And The Burial Of My Self-Respect

Bloody hell, MPs' staff should be given the day off on Budget Day. How are we supposed to comment on something when we haven't had any time to read it? Let alone work out whether it's going to be worth our own while to turn up for work tomorrow morning?

I might be feeling a bit brain-dead this week, but I suppose I know the answer to that question already, now I come to think of it. I still haven't got over that whole monkeys earning peanuts thing.

"Try not to spend all your money down the pub tonight," I say to Josh, as he gets ready to go out for a drink with Robbie and the rest of the boys. "Don't forget I'm relying on you and Connie to keep me, in the style to which I'd rather like to become accustomed."

"Don't hold your breath," says Max, who is sorting through the bills again, while watching the news at the same time.

I think he's making notes of the main changes announced in George Osborne's Budget, and trying to work out what the effects on ours will be. I don't think I want to know.

"You look as if you mean business," I say, lying down on the sofa and pulling a blanket over my legs.

Max glances at me over the top of his glasses, then looks down at the calculator he's holding in his hand. He taps in some numbers, and makes a wincing noise when he sees the result.

"I do mean business" he says. "Unlike you."

There's no call for that, seeing as I'm not actually asleep. I'm just resting my eyes for a minute, that's all. Just like Ken Clarke during today's Budget speech in the House.

When I wake up again, I'm even more confused than usual. There's no sign of Troels Hartmann, and the room is full of teenage boys, all smelling strongly of after-shave, along with something else that I can't quite identify.

"Wha -?" I say, trying to sit up and look alert.

"Ssh, Mum!" says Josh. "Me and the boys are having a discussion. High finance, so you wouldn't understand."

"Why are you here, though?" I say. "I thought you were going out."

"We're economising - as per your advice."

Josh raises a can of Red Bull in a toast, as do all the other boys. Oh, and Robbie's holding a bottle of Jagermeister, too. So that's what I can smell.

"Oh, God," I say. "Do you have to do it here? I was hoping for an early night."

"Yes," says Josh. "We do. Staying in is the new going out. Now go back to sleep and don't interrupt. We're trying to sort out what to do with approximately thirty million pounds."

I'm so pleased to hear that the younger generation are taking fiscal matters seriously, that I feel it's safe to relax and close my eyes again. Then I try very hard to recapture my dream, though this proves wholly unsuccessful. Troels seems to have been replaced by a sniggering George Osborne, who is brandishing a sheaf of unpaid bills.

It's all right, though, because the boys are still working hard to restore the public finances by promoting all kinds of growth:

"I'd buy the moon," says Josh. "And make it lavishly hospitable."

"Hmm," says Robbie, approvingly. "Not a bad idea, that."

I'm quite impressed by my son's entrepreneurial thinking myself. I open my eyes, and start taking more of an interest. I could be raising the next Chancellor of the Exchequer, for all I know.

"What about an island?" says Robbie. "That'd be even better than the moon."

"Yes," I say. "Richard Branson's got one of those."

I am clearly witnessing the birth of a new entrepreneurial think-tank, with innovative ideas on how to ensure the recovery of the UK economy. I feel quite moved.

"What would you give me?" says Josh to Robbie, which confuses me a bit. "Could I have a cove all to myself?"

"Yes," says Robbie. "Though it wouldn't be as nice a one as mine."

Cove? I'm about to ask the boys for an explanation, but then Max walks into the room, so I gesture for him to sit next to me. Then I can pick his brains on the sly. All this economics jargon is leaving me behind.

"And we could have a monorail, too," says Josh. "I love a good monorail, don't you?"

"Yes - and one of those Flying Dolphins like the Russians have got," says Robbie, pouring another Jagerbomb.

"So, is this going to be some sort of tourist-based economy, then?" I say, trying to get a handle on things. "Only I think you'd need a manufacturing base to spread the risk."

All the boys look at me as if I am barking mad, which is something I'm becoming increasingly used to this week.

"Mum," says Josh, very slowly, as if speaking to a child. "What exactly do you think we're talking about?"

"A plan for economic recovery," I say. "Or to reduce the deficit and encourage growth. Or something like that, anyway."

My voice tails off as I realise that no-one has any idea what I'm going on about. Including Max.

"Mol," he says, and his voice is strangely gentle. "I think you need to go to bed and get a decent night's sleep. The boys are discussing what they'd do if -"

"If they were in charge of the country," I say. "I know that. I'm not an idiot, thank you very much. Or a monkey - even if I am paid peanuts."

"No," says Josh. "Sorry. We're deciding what we'd do if we won Euro-Millions. You know - that lottery thing?"

I nod, then shake my head and cringe. I think Josh must feel sorry for me, because he pats me on the arm and says:

"Don't worry, Mum. I've already decided I'd give half of it to you and Dad if I win."

"Only half?" says Max.

I assume he's being ironic, but Josh doesn't take it that way. I'm not the only one whose feelings are all too easily hurt.

"That's more than you'd get from Connie, Dad," he says. "She said she'd buy you and Mum a house and clear your debts, but there wasn't any point in giving you any more than that, because you're both so bloody rubbish with money."

It's lucky for Connie that she's ill in bed, though next time she wants a hot drink, she can get it herself. I'm retiring to the monkey enclosure, to curl up in a ball and dream about Troels.

The Smell Of Sacred Cows Burning, Or Why You Should Always Look On The Bright Side Of (Public Sector) Life.

I feel positively geriatric. Not only is the final landing of the Discovery space shuttle shown on tonight's news, but I recall watching its first-ever launch. And why does everyone keep talking about retirement?

"What's your pension like?" says Max this morning, as we leave the house. Late, because we've overslept again.

"God knows," I say. "Probably rubbish, seeing as the House of Commons have changed their minds about the provider at least three times since I started work."

"Well, it could be worse," says Max. "You could work in the Private Sector - like me."

Aargh. I've spent hours over the last few weeks listening to constituents complaining about their pensions, from every possible angle. Those who have got Public Sector pensions are furious at proposals to make them less generous; while those who haven't are enraged by the notion of the former's entitlement to final salary pay-outs. Not to mention by the statistics on relative pay across both groups.

Honestly, casework has such a nasty habit of making you question sacred cows, not that this is the moment to start having yet another existential crisis about my political beliefs. Better just to carry on as if Max hadn't even mentioned the Private Sector. 

"Well, never mind about that," I say. "Seeing as you were really asking about my pension. Let's just say that the definition of 'actively managed' means different things to different people."

In the olden days when I first started working for The Boss, the House of Commons gave MPs a list of 'approved providers' that their staff's pensions contributions could be paid into. All pretty simple, except that, almost as soon as my pension was set up, the company running it was bought out.

My scheme was closed to new entrants, and a crash and burn approach was adopted towards those of us who were stuck in the damn thing; so the only benefit to arise from that experience was an increased ability to empathise with all the constituents who've been affected by the Equitable Life debacle. Not that empathy has proved to be of much comfort to anyone so far.

After that, the *HOC had the bright idea of allowing staff to choose their own stakeholder pensions - so I took advice from the union, who organised for me to join a new scheme. It was a bit of a pain having two pensions statements to try to decipher - seeing as I am clueless about anything financial - but at least the new provider didn't seem quite as determined to lose all my money as the original one was.

Problem therefore neatly solved - for all of a year - until those idiots in the *Fees Office decided that too many MPs' staff were still not bothering to set up their pensions. This was blamed, not on the terminal apathy of the staff involved, but on the system being too demanding for them to cope with. (Which rather begs the question of whether they were fit to work for MPs in the first place, but I suppose that's a different story.)

Anyway, the result was the creation of the Portcullis Pension Plan, which meant I had to move my contributions yet again - a nightmare that took absolutely months. (Though it presumably wasn't considered as demanding a process as simply getting off your arse and signing up for one of the earlier pension plans would have been - unless I'm just bitter. Which I might be.)

And I bet this won't be the end of it, either - but I do wish they'd just leave our pensions well alone. By now I have absolutely no idea where I'll stand when I retire, because I can't make head nor tail of all the letters I get from different pension providers, except that the word 'growth' seems to be conspicuous by its absence from all of them. I bet George Osborne knows exactly how I feel.

So I'm not feeling too guilty about my supposedly fool-proof public sector pension by the time I get around to explaining it to Max. Who'll probably have left me by the time I can claim it, anyway - due to the beard, if nothing else.

"All I know is that the original pension is now worth less than a tenth of what it was at the end of my first year in the job," I say. "So I wouldn't exactly count on it to fund any trips to Thailand. Or even to Sainsbury's, for that matter."

Max looks horrified - which is a particularly unflattering facial expression that I'm starting to get used to, ever since his boss sent out the redundancy notices.

"Well, what on earth are we going to do if I don't get a job in one of the other stores, then?" he says. "If I end up unemployed at my age, I might never work again. I'll probably be featured in a Panorama programme in ten years' time, hugely obese and eating a McDonalds while watching The Jeremy Kyle Show."

Now there's something to look forward to. Honestly, it's getting harder and harder to follow Mum's edict to always look on the bright side of life. Especially when Max and I seem to have spent the last two days talking about nothing but pensions. Where the hell's the romance in that?

I'm actually quite relieved when I arrive at work, for once - even though the first caller is Richard Bloody Levinson. At least he provides a change of subject.

"Did you see that bloke from the Police on TV last night - moaning about bonuses being cut?' he says. "Why do people get bonuses just for doing their bloody jobs? And they're paid more than firemen! These people make me sick. Join the real world, that's what I say."

By which he means the world of The Daily Telegraph, but never mind. I can cope with anything today, as long as it doesn't involve the dreaded P word.

I make a non-committal grunt, partly so as not to interrupt Richard's train of thought, and partly to allow me to swallow the Haribos Greg's just given me for breakfast.

"And as for these other public sector workers demanding no change to their ruddy gold-plated pensions, don't even get me started on them," he says. "Which includes you and your lot, I suppose. What's the matter with you all? Don't you even know how lucky you are?"

"Um, yes," I say. Which Mum would be very pleased about. I can almost hear her humming the tune.



*HOC - House of Commons, as usual.
*Fees Office - House of Commons Department of Finance & Administration. Used to be responsible for payment of salaries and allowances etc, which functions are now the role of IPSA

Playing Dead In A World Gone Madder Than Usual.

Never, ever send Greg a supposedly-amusing video, that's all I can say. The end result just isn't worth it.

"Great clip you emailed me of that dog pretending to die, Mol," he says, when he arrives this morning. "Watch this!"

Then his bones appear to turn to jelly, and he collapses on the spot. Admittedly he doesn't nail the landing, but it's a pretty impressive display, even so.

"Very good," I say. "Have you spent much time practising?"

"Hours," he says. "My blind date stood me up last night, so learning how to play dead seemed a good way to fill the time. Offers endless possibilities in the workplace, too - once I've stopped losing my spatial awareness as I go down, that is."

"Possibilities like what?" I say, before I work it out for myself: excruciatingly boring constituent - emergency collapse of caseworker. Fan-bloody-tastic.

"I'll teach you how to do it," says Greg. "For a fee. Payable in gin and general slavery."

I don't have time to learn the technique, though, as the phones are so busy - presumably because callers have realised that Recess has now finished, and that The Boss won't be answering the phone himself any more. Which would usually mean that they could realistically expect a sensible reply to their queries, but I'm not doing much better than Andrew today. There are some very tricky questions indeed.

First off, Richard Levinson wants to know why the United Nations' interpretation of urgent isn't the same as ordinary people's; and then Pete Carew calls to ask whether Andrew's going to try to make political capital from the freezing of Colonel Gaddafi's assets.

"He bloody well should," he says. "Seeing as we'd have a hard time freezing the Coalition's assets in a revolution, wouldn't we? Half the ministers have their money stashed off-shore."

"Good point," I say. "Though I don't see much sign of the UK revolting at the moment, even though some of its inhabitants undoubtedly are. Revolting, that is."

"Mol-ly," says Pete, in a warning voice that makes me feel about five years old. "Those are Andrew's constituents you're talking about."

Honestly, I have no idea what is wrong with Pete. The concept of black humour entirely escapes him - which suggests that he doesn't meet as many of the people he represents as he should.

No wonder The Boss is always complaining that local councillors pass their most difficult cases straight to us instead of first trying to deal with them themselves. If they had to manage the usual suspects, they'd soon realise it's essential to extract every shred of humour you can get from the experience - if you're to avoid going stark, staring mad yourself.

I don't say any of this to Pete, though, as he hasn't yet forgiven me for suggesting that not every single council worker is indispensable, and still refers to me as a fascist whenever he gets the chance. Or so Greg tells me, anyway - Pete doesn't say it to my face. He's a man after Peter Mandelson's heart.

Bearing this in mind, I decide I'd better adopt the precautionary principle, so I bite my lip and act professional - unlike a certain repeatedly-collapsing colleague that I can see out of the corner of my eye. I should never have sent Greg that bloody clip.

"Anything else I can help you with, Pete?" I say. "If not, I'll ring off, if you don't mind. We're rather busy today, seeing as we couldn't get much done during Recess."

"Andrew there all last week, was he?" says Pete. "You should have told him to go home and do some decorating."

"Trish has just had their whole house done up," I say. "And it looks quite nice to me. What do you think's wrong with it?"

"Well, they should have thought twice before using Osborne and Little wallpaper," he says. "Shouldn't they? Though I bet you bloody Osborne's pleased. Laughing all the way to the bank, he'll be."

Honestly, there's no end to the things that an MP needs to consider, is there? It's a mad world when your choice of wallpaper becomes a political act. (Unless you're Derry Irvine, of course - but the less said about that debacle the better. Even the word "Pugin" causes a collective Labour Party shudder.)

But it's not just wallpaper that's making it feel like a mad world today. What's really insane is that Miss Chambers actually seems to have a genuine complaint - for once.

"It's about the Council," she says, slightly more quietly than usual - though Greg can still hear her from where he's standing in the doorway between our offices. He pulls a face, scribbles something on the back of a Council Planning Committee report, and then throws it at me.

"Read it," he mouths, so I do - while also trying to listen to Miss C, who's becoming more agitated by the second.

Greg's scrawl says,

"Emergency signal. When you can't take it any more, roll your eyes, and I'll collapse. Very noisily, so you can excuse yourself and hang up."

This seems like a very good plan, so I nod at him, while Miss Chambers continues to explain that she's had enough of the Housing Department's Repairs Service.

"What exactly is the problem, then?" I say. "Are they actually refusing to do the repair?"

"No," she says. "But they won't make a bloody appointment to do it. They just turn up and, if you're not in, then they leave a card and bugger off. Then you have to report the repair all over again and wait weeks for their next visit. And they don't make an appointment for that one, either."

This doesn't seem to make any sense at all, so I double-check. This is Miss Chambers I'm talking to, after all.

"So, let me get this straight - you're saying they don't actually make any appointments; that they just turn up and expect tenants to be in, as if by magic?"

"No," says Miss C. "I mean, yes. They say that that's their system."

"Oh, for goodness' sake," I say. "That's not a system, that's a -"

I'm interrupted by a loud crash, which suggests that I am not as conscious of my involuntary facial expressions as I might have expected. Though I'm a lot more conscious than Greg is, after he hit his head on the door-frame.

Let's just say that explaining the concept of playing dead is not as much fun as it sounds. Not in A&E on a busy Monday afternoon. And definitely not when they ask for details of your injured colleague's occupation.

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.

Collective Male Madness. An Under-Reported Problem.

God knows what's going on this week. The more I dither about meeting up with Johnny again, the keener he gets. It's most peculiar. I can't help thinking that both of us should be making more effort to sort out our marriages - if we don't want our kids having to deal with sort of parental nonsense that Dinah and I face on a regular basis.

Dad didn't even mention the Thai bride during his last phone call, but I have a horrible feeling that that doesn't mean she's out of the picture, and Dinah agrees. She says that the rule of thumb with Dad is that, the less he tells you, the worse whatever he's up to really is. A bit like Josh.

Mind you, I might be well-advised to keep Johnny happy. Not for more roses - the Joan Collins debacle was far too bad for my blood pressure - but because my attempt to sort things out with Max isn't exactly going well.

It would help if he didn't keep being so late home from work. I can't believe that one old lady can need so many out-of-hours visits. It's not as if Max is responsible for Care in the Community, which usually seems to be my bloody job. In fact, I'm not even sure that I believe in this Mrs Bloom at all.

It's as if all the men I know are caught up in some sort of collective madness. It's probably George Osborne's fault. Everyone who calls today seems to be freaking about about how bad the news is going to be in tomorrow's Comprehensive Spending Review.

Everyone except for Mr Beales, that is. He has much more important things on his mind when he comes to the office this afternoon. He wants a progress report on what I've managed to get done about his speeding ticket.

"Well, nothing," I say. "You already told me you were speeding. Just pay the fine."

"But what about this charge of dangerous driving?" he says.

"Well, you need to talk to your solicitor about that," I say. "I'm not qualified to give you legal advice."

"Doesn't seem like you're much good at anything. It's simple." He sighs, as if I am a complete half-wit, and then continues, speaking very slowly - just to make his point.

"I. Only. Hit. The Policeman. Because. He wasn't. Wearing. A Luminous. Jacket."

Gah. Does he never give up? I'm sure I'm hyperventilating.

Mr Beales waits for me to finish coughing, and then says, triumphantly,

"And he still isn't wearing the bloody thing either - another accident just waiting to happen."

"How do you know that?" I say.

"I'm a photographer," he says. "We are used to working undercover. I'll send you the evidence as soon as I get it, and then we can talk about what to do next."

For God's sake. What we should do next is to get Mr Beales committed, though maybe I could ask him to check out Mrs Bloom first, if he really is any good at stake-outs. And he could find out who Ellen was with when she bought those Lebkuchen, while he's at it - if that doesn't make me sound completely paranoid. Maybe this week's madness isn't exclusively male, after all.

Greg Narrowly Avoids a Boris Johnson Moment

Greg spends the day holding forth about how badly we are paid. (Some of us more than others, actually.) He has a theory that every pound he pays in taxes goes direct to Liverpool to be spent on shell-suits, but when I suggest he tests this on George Osborne at the Treasury, he doesn't seem to want to take it that far. Maybe he does retain at least a vestige of political-correctness, unless he's just worried about creating a Boris-type storm by insulting the Scousers in writing.

Honestly, if all Labour MPs' staffers are becoming reactionaries like Greg and I, what on earth are the Tory ones like? Are they even worse than us, spending their days wishing they could hang or flog everyone who makes contact with them? Or maybe they're our mirror-images, and nurture secret fantasies of becoming social workers while wearing cardigans knitted from lentils.

It'd be funny if all Tory staff were secret socialists and all New Labour's were covert Tories - although I guess the latter wouldn't really be that surprising post-Blair. Maybe I should work for a Conservative MP, but that would mean that my decades of Labour Party membership would have been wasted. Oh, but I forgot - I'm not a member any more. The world's my lobster.

Sometimes the knowledge that you have other options is very comforting, especially when you have to deal with someone like Mr Beales. He phones just before the office closes for the day, to ask whether The Boss has written his reference for the court yet.

"What reference?" I ask.

I wish I hadn't. It turns out that The Boss has agreed to write to the judge, confirming Mr Beales' excellence as a photographer. Andrew knows even less than Mr Beales about photography - but then lack of knowledge on any subject has never prevented him from voicing an opinion on it, preferably as publicly as possible.