MONDAY

DOMINIC “drab” Raab is in soapy bubble with the boss over his opera jibe at Angela Rayner. Drab’s inference that opera is a class beyond the hoi-polloi was somewhat dim-witted and now we’re all having to pay for his foolishness.

I confess to agreeing with Aristotle Onassis and his analysis of this dreadful art: “I hate the opera. I think I must have a tin ear. No matter how hard I concentrate it still sounds like a bunch of Italian chefs screaming risotto recipes at each other.” But each to his own, I suppose.

So, we’ve all been summoned to a pow-wow to discuss ways of showing that we’re down and dirty with the working classes. This could get messy.

Pandora, one of our junior advisers at Culture, Media and Sport, sticks up her hand. “Daddy’s head game-keeper has ferrets and he sometimes races them with other agricultural labouring chaps. Maybe we could get one of our Russian donors to sponsor a national ferret race and we could all join in.”

Liz Truss suddenly speaks in those strangled tones which makes you think she’s chewing on badly-cooked chicken. “Why don’t we have a variation on Bring Your Child To Work Day? This one could be Bring a Poor Person To Work. We could hold a series of raffles at places like Sainsbury’s and other places where people on lesser incomes go for the chance to win a day at Westminster with one of us.”

Jocasta Rothermere Dacre, one of Carrie’s work experience placements (with 40k-a-year expenses) has an even more eye-watering idea.

“I know: let’s hold an annual working-class ball where everyone has to dress up as chimney-sweeps and scullery maids and we could raise money for Ormond Street or somewhere like that.”

TUESDAY

BORIS is in a spot of bother. Following speculation about the state of his marriage he’d staged a rather elaborate “hidden footage” stunt with Carrie. He’d arranged for security cameras to “inadvertently” show Carrie “playing the old tin flute” and then for it to be leaked to The Sun as a way of showing the marriage was in rude health. It was the same stunt they used to do in poor Sleepy Hancock, but with a positive spin.

Sadly, the security cameras only picked up the, ahem, finale … which showed a rather dishevelled PM with his trousers at his ankles eating a takeaway ham and pineapple pizza. But not before a bumbling back-bencher had wandered into his chambers and caught the pair in the act. Now it’s all gone a bit Pete Tongue.

WEDNESDAY

I TAKE a call from Boris who wants my advice on how to respond to Sturgeon’s latest referendum demands. “You’ve spent some time up there, Roops. What’s all this plebsiscite referendum malarkey. Don’t the plebs always get to vote in elections?”

I tell him that this could be a classic opportunity to kill the nationalist ghost and that we should call her bluff and accede to the terms of the next election. (This is the plan I’d previously discussed with Nicola). I tell him that he should go on a charm offensive to Scotland and increase his visibility there.

“Don’t believe the opinion polls,” I tell him. “You’re very popular in Scotland. You should take Farage with you as he plays to a wider demographic. Visit Trump Turnberry too, as all Scots are proud that the last US President was Scottish.”

THURSDAY

FOLLOWING the revelations that the PM had sought private funding for a £150k tree-house for his lad that dreadful hack Pippa Crerar has revealed other colourful transactions which could be open to misunderstanding. Dishy Sunak bought a country estate in Sutherland with its own small loch and had it filled with salmon and trout so that he could teach his children to fish.

And Liz Truss asked the Treasury to fund tennis lessons from Emma Raducanu and then to hire Wimbledon for a few weeks so that they could play tennis with assorted Middle East potentates and Chinese trading officials. “It would ultimately benefit our business interests and increase trading opportunities and so the £2m outlay could be seen as an investment,” she’s reported to have said.

FRIDAY

THERE’S trouble ahead. Greasy Gove is organising this year’s party fund-raising auctions. So far, he’s got several left-over rolls of the notorious Overath & Schwarzenbeck gold-leaf wallpaper that caused all that trouble with the standards wallahs last year. Worse than this though is the patient gown that Boris wore while he was in hospital with the Covid. It’s been autographed and bids of over £50k have been invited.

NHS staff are absolutely furious and Covid victims’ families are all over the television in floods of tears. “How Low Can You Go, Prime Minister?” screams the normally compliant Daily Mail.