The Diary: Rory Bremner

Another request arrives asking me to contribute to a documentary about satire. There seems to be a lot of these comedy retrospectives around but, like Katie Price, I’d much rather be doing it than talking about it. It would be great to be on air now, just when the coalition is getting really interesting. I am particularly fascinated by the contrast between Gordon Brown and David Cameron.

It always seemed to me that Brown was obsessed with detail, to the extent that he was unable to make any decisions at all, except when faced with a crisis, when, by and large (foot and mouth, floods, international banking crisis), he performed rather well. To be fair, he may have been aware of this himself, which is why he so often seemed to go out of his way to create a crisis in order to have something to solve. Even his marriage to Sarah (one of his best-ever decisions, by the way) had an element of crisis about it – his 50th birthday was just six months away and he had endured years of rumours that he was gay.

Cameron, on the other hand, with all the easy charm, confidence, self-assurance and fluency of his breeding and education, seems to throw out policies and programmes like confetti, only for them to come unstuck months or even weeks later because they haven’t been thought through. Hence the spate of screeching U-turns on everything from school book vouchers to selling off forests. “What do you mean it’s not working? Oh well, never mind, let’s try something else instead!” is the Cameron style, where everything is blithe, easy-going and instantly changeable. This is M&S politics: “If you don’t like it, bring it back and we’ll change it.”

Hardly surprising, really, given that Cameron, like Blair, is essentially a salesman. Indeed, he prides himself on it, telling his party a year ago: “Gordon Brown sometimes says that I’m a bit of a salesman and, you know what, I plead guilty. In this country, with all of our difficulties, we are going to need some salesmanship.” That’s all very well but the thing about being an ad man or a PR spokesman is that you only have to sell something – persuade people to buy it – you don’t have to make the thing or, indeed, make sure it works.

As for Labour, I know I should be working on my Ed Miliband but I’m beginning to think I might not need to for very long. And, in any case, if anyone needs to work on his Ed Miliband, it’s surely Ed Miliband. Neil Kinnock said that what distinguished Ed from the other leadership contenders was that he had the “X-factor”. And now, in common with the last two winners of that show (little Joe McElderry and Matt Cardle – I had to look that one up, which proves my point) he seems to have largely disappeared from view. Having said that, invisibility doesn’t seem to harm your poll figures. Nick Clegg – winner of the X Factor or Lib Dem leader, I can’t remember which – was hailed as the hero of the first televised leaders’ debates partly because no one had ever seen him before or knew who he was. John Bird and John Fortune even did a TV piece about fielding a mystery candidate in the election, a man (or woman, such was the mystery) with a paper bag over his/her head who won thousands of votes because of the infinite novelty value. Maybe that’s Ed’s game. We’ll see. Or maybe we won’t.

The other possibility is that just as Brown apparently froze when he became prime minister, overcome by the awesome responsibility of his role (as opposed to Blair, who wore power lightly), so Ed Miliband peaked the moment he won the leadership election last September, a moment forever pickled in TV aspic as his bulging eyes stare in shock at his defeated elder brother, David.

While I’m very keen to get my teeth into making some documentaries, it’s proving hard to persuade TV executives to commission something that doesn’t involve (a) celebrities, (b) gypsies or (c) physical deformity. In the meantime I’m setting to work on a new translation of Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld. The original, performed in Paris in 1858, contrived to send up both Greek mythology and the French Second Empire. With the mythological references less relevant to modern audiences, we’ll have to work on the political satire instead. Up on Mount Olympus, Jupiter is a discredited, randy old sod whose habit of dressing up in different guises to seduce women is wearing thin with his fellow gods. I’m thinking Berlusconi at the G8. While other nations greet their leaders with the national anthem, Berlusconi should really be brought on to the Benny Hill theme tune. But if Berlusconi is Jupiter, who would represent the censorious Voice of Public Opinion? Answers on a postcard.

I don’t do theatre shows nearly enough, so it was a joy to join Jo Brand, Mark Thomas, Andy Hamilton and other favourite acts of mine for a benefit night earlier this month in memory of author and comedian Linda Smith, who died five years ago, in February 2006, at the age of 48. The money raised will go to the Linda Smith Tribute Fund at Target Ovarian Cancer. While the other comics were on great form, the two best lines of the night were Linda’s, read from her book I Think The Nurses Are Stealing My Clothes. On fashion: “If you hold a shellsuit up to your ear, you can hear Romford.” And, still the best line ever on the Middle East: “It’s rather annoying the way our oil’s ended up under their sand.”

I was sad to read of Howard Davies’s departure as director of the LSE over its Libyan connections. We met some years ago during the research for Bremner, Bird and Fortune, and I remember being very impressed by his sharp brain, sense of humour and love of Manchester City FC (those last two going together, of course). His analysis of the economy was dazzling – I vaguely remember phrases like “asymmetric shock” and “the volatility smile” whizzing over my head – and his insights into ministers and shadow ministers remain with me today. “It’s very hard to overstate how bright Ed Balls is,” he said. “But Ed does.” And what about William Hague? “He worked for me at McKinsey. He did my photocopying.” But what was he like? “Very good at photocopying.” He may have made an error of judgment (and not just over Manchester City) but someone of his quality shouldn’t be idle for long.

Listening to Niall Ferguson’s Intelligence Squared lecture on the six “killer apps” of western civilisation at Chelsea’s Cadogan Hall recently, and admiring the crimson lining of his well-cut suit (he’s so vain, he probably thinks this story’s about him), I was reminded of a PJ O’Rourke line, uttered at the very same venue a few weeks earlier. To paraphrase PJ: “How do you know when somebody lectures at Harvard? They tell you.”

This time of year always reminds me of the exchange, possibly apocryphal, that took place in a posh Home Counties house in the immediate run-up to the last Gulf war. An armchair general was holding forth at the dinner table, giving his guests the benefit of his strategic wisdom when his wife came in with the coffee. “Whatever happens,” he declared, “it’s essential, absolutely essential, that we launch the invasion before the middle of March.” “Why’s that, darling?” his wife interjected. “Because of Cheltenham?”

PS: Suggestion for graffiti on the wall outside the Department of Work and Pensions: BEWARE THE MARCH OF IDS.