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away with such a scurrilous piece would imply either that she didn’t care or, worse, that she didn’t dare challenge their innuendo. To protect herself, she had little option but to start proceedings, and fight to win.
    ‘Damn,’ she muttered, as the lipstick smudged. She wiped it off and tried again, as the image consultants, whose ministrations she had so resisted, had shown her. ‘I’m going to be late, as usual. If the press alleged that Diane Clark was well-meaning, scatty and found adjustment to the top flights of public life tricky, I couldn’t sue. They’d be spot on.’
    The bell rang. The driver announced that he had ministerial boxes for her; could he bring them up? Hastily Diane flew round the living room, trying to conceal the evidence of the afternoon’s dalliance, then pressed the intercom button to admit him. A thick-set man in his forties entered, averted his eyes from the bedroom and set the heavy boxes on the floor by her desk.
    She locked up and followed him down, hoping that the blue silk outfit was suitable for the event and rehearsing in her mind the remarks due after the dinner. She nodded ‘good evening’ on the stairs to the elderly couple who lived above her; they were returning home laden with shopping. Atthe front entrance she paused. ‘Dave, can I ask you something?’
    ‘Certainly, madam.’ He drew back his shoulders in the plain grey suit. He had been a driver in the Royal Corps of Signals; the government car service was an obvious step to take into Civvy Street.
    ‘Do you think I should be more discreet with my private life, now that I’m a Cabinet minister?’
    The man’s eyes popped. ‘I – I couldn’t begin to say, madam,’ he stammered.
    ‘Am I being watched the whole time? That’s what I mean.’
    ‘Well, madam,’ the ex-soldier recovered his composure, ‘if I were you, I should act as if I was.’
    ‘Hmm. That’s difficult.’ Diane hesitated. ‘Dave, you married?’
    ‘I am, madam. Three kids, and a missus that’d cut my balls off if I strayed.’
    ‘Ah, I see.’ Diane caught the man’s eye, and they both half smiled. ‘Oh, Lord, Dave. If I’d realised what was entailed, maybe I’d never have started out on this path. I could have been a college lecturer and worked a twenty-hour week and had long holidays and screwed my best students. Instead I’m an Aunt Sally for every frigging journalist, and I have to behave .’
    ‘Yes, madam,’ the driver said, and chuckled softly. ‘Front seat or back, madam?’
     
    It was not till much later in the evening that, flushed with wine, Diane returned to the flat, made a pot of coffee and settled at her desk with the red boxes. Inside the top one was a first draft of the social-security review. It gave her a headache just to flick through the pages. The new government had promised to abide by the budgetary restrictions of the previous incumbents for at least two years. With such a pledge no extra spending was possible; but without it the punters would have taken fright. The election would have been lost, as voters’ fears of the spendthrift tendency would have outpaced an increasing liking for the man who was now Prime Minister.
    ‘We are stuck,’ Diane scribbled crossly in the margin, ‘with the budget we inherited.’ She saw, with a wry smile, that she was already using ‘we’ to mean the government, as if it were a seamless continuum. ‘Any action requiring largesse will have to wait. The legislative programme is also tight, with House of Lords reform taking precedence. So please fillet out those possibilities that don’t require either new money or new laws, and I will consider them. One page of A4 only, please.’
    That was how the big issues got deferred. Given the broad sweep of the review, there must be enough minor proposals to keep junior ministers occupied. Diane marked up one or two, more as illustrations than as instructions. She was determined not to become demoralised: force majeure