Monday “Alistair!” shouts Gordon, and I start forward in my chair. I wish he’d stop doing that. There’s a moment, just between sleeping and waking, when I always feel like I’m flying a plane, or steering a huge boat, and it’s all going wrong and it’s going to crash and it’s all my fault and . . .

“Alistair!” shouts Gordon, again. “Hraaaugh,” I say. “Yes. Sorry. Drifting off.” “VAT?” says Gordon.

“Going up,” I say, confidently. Gordon just looks at me. I slap myself. “Down?” I suggest. “Going down, then up? Going up then down? Not going anywhere? Going sideways?” “Down,” says Gordon. “Down then back up. Get it together, Alistair.” I nod, grimly. It’s about 2am on the day of the Pre-Budget Report. I’ve been up all night. All week. All month, maybe.

Keep nodding off. That’s why Gordon keeps shouting at me. It’s worse with Peter. He just appears. Warm breath, suddenly, in my ear.

Smell of racehorses. Sometimes I nuzzle him, I’m so tired.

Tuesday People tell me that George Osborne did quite well at the PBR debate. I wouldn’t know. I was sleeping. Between us, that’s the whole point of my eyebrows. They detract attention from my eyelids, which have another pair of eyes painted on them so that I can sometimes secretly doze off. Rumour has it that Margaret Beckett has been sleeping for years. Some people reckon she might be dead.

Anyway, bit of a problem with the VAT. I said one thing and the Treasury website said something else. No idea what. No idea what I said, either. To be honest, I was slightly winging it. Yvette’s trying to see if she can find it all on YouTube.

Wednesday Crisis meeting in the flat at No 11, to decide on our excuse for the VAT website cockup before Prime Minister’s Questions. My suggestion is that we blame it all on Ed Balls. To be honest, I’ve been suggesting this for pretty much everything lately. Yvette never seems keen.

Jack Straw says that we should blame it on the Civil Service. Gordon wants to blame it on the Americans. Margaret Beckett doesn’t say anything. Peter has some cunning plan that we should say somebody got VAT confused with my cat and that it walked all over my keyboard.

“Do I have a cat?” I say. Everybody exchanges glances. “You used to,” says Yvette.

“S***,” I say, and we all hold our breath and listen for the sound of some scratching.

Thursday Jack and Yvette caught me sleeping this morning.

The papers say we had various secret plans for 20 per cent VAT, 18.5 per cent VAT and 0 per cent VAT with reduced lactose and added calcium. Jack reckoned the problems may have arisen from Gordon making his original notes on the back of a milk carton. This is not impossible. Both of them were very impressed with my fake eyes and said that they might start doing the same thing, too..

“I think Margaret already does it,” I told them. Jack looked at Margaret, sadly. “We can only hope,” he sighed.

Then Peter burst in and said that he wanted us to hold a press conference in which the cat would admit everything.

Although we still can’t find the cat. What am I going to tell the wife? Gordon says I should blame the Americans.

Friday “They’re saying new Labour is dead,” says Peter, when we all meet, yet again, in Gordon’s office.

“She’s probably just locked in a garden shed somewhere,” I mutter. “And anyway, she’s called Sybil.” Peter says I should get some sleep. Then he wakes me up again, to tell me that I should get some sleep. I explain about my eyes.

“Cunning,” says Peter, and then we notice that Margaret, Jack, Yvette and Gordon are just staring straight ahead, not saying anything. Eventually we tiptoe outside and turn off the lights.

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