THERE should be a German word for it — the converse of Schadenfreude, a term to describe the depressing sensation of reading a middle-aged woman’s embarrassingly childish diaries, which relate sexual activities but display no sign of maturity, dignity or judgment.

It was the sheer schoolgirl banality of the diaries of Ms Tracey Temple that induced gloom. The Iraq memorial service at St Paul’s was “nice”. At a Buckingham Palace garden party, “we didn’t have as much fun as last time but it was still a good day” — that’s about as interesting as it gets.

“I can see I am going to be very bizi,” she writes with infantile archness when she first goes to work for Mr Prescott. At the office party “everyone commented on my black dress (low, button up the back). I was pleased coz my hair looked nice as well.”

When Mr Prescott arrives he lifts her dress to see her stockings. Tracey has no objection to this prelude to some predictable late-night liaisons. We all thought we’d been quite embarrassed enough just seeing those pictures of the couple falling about at a Christmas party — forgivable in a pair of interns maybe, but contemptible in a 67-year-old Cabinet minister and a 43-year-old civil servant.

The world is full of Tracey Temples, not very bright, susceptible to any strutting bruiser of a boss who thinks that because he has been given a title (eg, Deputy Prime Minister) he must be one hell of a guy. Such men see women only as bits of fluff or skirt or tail or whatever. Tracey means nothing to Mr Prescott. Her sorry saga of gropings and blow jobs behind the desk only confirms that Mr Prescott is as thuggish as had long been suspected.

Only ten years ago it seemed amusing that the poet Fleur Adcock published her not very good poem about dreaming that she was kissing Mr Prescott: . . . our eyes had locked / and we were leaning avidly forward / lips out-thrust, certain protuberances / under our clothing brushing each other’s fronts . . . The idea of Prescott having sexual allure seemed so preposterous that Michael Heseltine read the poem aloud in the House of Commons.

Mr Prescott, who said he’d had to look up “protuberances”, was fed up with “that bloody poem” by the time he and I and his team, including a secretary named Rosie, caught a rush-hour Tube to Heathrow and a flight to Brussels (he was still in Opposition, and was attending a Socialist International). Rosie had been besieged all day for comments on her boss’s sexiness. He was said to be macho — shaved three times a day — but “insecure with women”.

The Mail on Sunday called the diaries “tawdry” accounts of “low-rent debauchery”. Some details, referring to sexual failures, had been mercifully removed “on grounds of taste”. The result of publication is that Mr Prescott’s own words about the Tories — “despicable, seedy, grubby, hopeless, lying . . . bunch of third-rate, double-dealing disasters” — must haunt him.

The question of whether he misused his authority and the limousines and other perquisites of office aside, nobody speaks with any conviction in his support. The party would be duller without its clown. But he was never funny anyway.

EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARIES

Well God forbid — whatever made me I don’t know, but . . . I went back to his flat. As I walked in he started kissing and undressing me . . . Afterwards we sat in the kitchen and had a coffee. I said to him ‘No regrets?’ He said ‘No’ and asked me the same thing. I said ‘No’.

We were lucky we were never caught — as we never shut the door. I knew what we were doing was risky but we both got carried away. Seven civil servants worked right outside his office.

If I was wearing a skirt, he would slide his hand up my leg, under it. He used to stroke my back . . . And yes, I did give him sex in the office a couple of times. He would usually be going through his ministerial box — maybe things to do with regeneration or the environment.

I went to St Paul’s Cathedral with the DPM for the Iraq Memorial Service (October 10). It was great. Royalty were there; the PM and Cherie, lots of political leaders etc . . . Got back. Had to go to the flat with the boss. He can be a randy old sod at times coz he wanted sex again. He was so up for it. Got back in the office. Worked hard to catch up.

I loved him. I still do really. I also loved Pauline though I imagine she will feel devastated. I do feel bad about that.

PRESCOTT’S RESPONSE

The Deputy Prime Minister’s statement yesterday:

I HAVE admitted that Tracey Temple and I had intimate relations. However, much of her recollections in The Mail on Sunday are simply untrue, and are clearly motivated by a desire to maximise financial gain.

It is totally unacceptable for The Mail on Sunday and other newspapers to trawl through a long list of people — some hardly known to me, ex-staff members, family and friends — offering large amounts of money to make allegations without substance.

These papers’ actions have caused great concern to the people approached, with major intrusions into their family lives.

It is my intention to take this matter up with the Press Complaints Commission.

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