From the affair with Gina to the feud with Dom, our parliamentary sketchwriter boils down the former health minister’s memoir
January 2020: I scan the New Year’s Day edition of the Times. On page 37 there is a news in brief about a virus in China. I sense this is going to become a global pandemic with the loss of millions of lives. Try to impress on PM there is not a moment to waste but he is more interested in having a lie-in. Decide that I will begin writing a diary in 2022 so that I can keep some kind of contemporaneous notes.
Disappointed to find a lack of adjectives in the diary that’s not being written. Leave a stern note to that effect in the department. I expect my instructions to be acted on immediately. The pale, wintry sun crept through the window. Have no idea if sun was pale and wintry but that’s better. Always wanted my diary to feel as if it was written by a teenager.
