So finally we get a "Labour Budget". Ha! What fools we were to believe all that nasty stuff about Blair and Brown being Conservatives. What they really wanted, what they really, really wanted, you see, wasn't a 170-seat majority (twice) but credibility in the City. The kind of credibility that you can only get by restraining your real intentions for long enough to convince the bankers that you're not socialists really. (As if.) So the past six years have been an elaborate dance to the City's tune, all the while winking to the gallery of the left. Hush, hush, whisper who dares. Gordon and Tony are taxing your shares.
We see Tony in Texas squealing in the sty with the Republicans and talking tough on Iraq; we're told that behind the scenes, far behind the scenes, he's actually urging caution. "Just trust me," he's saying. "Abroad, as at home, I may be doing one thing, but really I'm doing another." Have we come to this? Is this the transparency we were offered? And if trust is Labour's coin, was it right to let Byers, Mittal and Moore devalue it so much?
Sunday night was Bafta night. Our production team was nominated for Best Comedy Programme, and John Bird and John Fortune for outstanding performance. Eight years ago, the same team won the award for our first series on Channel 4. I thought back to how things were then: the NHS in crisis; Britain's railways in a terrible tangle; a divided cabinet still uncertain about the extent and direction of our relationship with Europe; and a beleaguered prime minister looking to his chancellor to save the government's reputation. How times change.
Still, the team is brilliant: they research the show, assemble the scripts, find the locations, build the sets, book the crew, prepare the costumes and make-up, clear the songs for copyright, find all the archive footage, and shoot the show. All in just over four days. In the Real World, the finale of Moulin Rouge would take about two weeks at Shepperton Studios and cost £1.2m. Our director Steve Connelly does it in three hours in Soho for about £12.50.
I like Sven-Goran Eriksson. He is the antithesis of an England football manager: reserved, intelligent, detached even. And successful (so far, at least). Which is why his latest exploits are so galling. And no, I don't mean the alleged "affair". It's the fact that somewhere in that cool Saab engine of a brain, a valve went a few weeks ago. Ever since, we've seen him lend his name and his image to all manner of brands needing promotion: T-mobile, Sainsbury's, Sven's Classic Collection (I can't remember the exact name: I doubt he can, actually), and now Ulrika. Already snared and seduced by commercialism, the very association with his name enhancing the product's image and diminishing his own, he is finally cornered by the Great British Press. Gotcha. Busted. We've finally dragged him down to our level.
It's not even as if it was Tony Blair having the affair (chance would be a fine thing). This had everything the press could ask for, and more. Sex. Football. Sex and football. Swedish sex. Blonde TV star. Even Alastair bloody Campbell and Vanessa Feltz, for God's sake. Oh Sven, why did you have to make it so easy for them?
There's a hideous inevitability about our hunger to see the mighty humbled. The mind boggles at how we'd have treated some of the greater names: long-range photos of Mother Teresa's cellulite; headlines such as "Nelson's Column: My sex romps with Mandela"; as for Jesus Christ, he'd never have made it to Jerusalem before getting the full Daily Mail treatment: "Who does he think he is - the Son of God?"
As for Sven, the best he can do is climb into the oxygen bubble with David Beckham and stay there for the next 30 days. Or, more to the point, nights. The worst the tabloids could do is describe his relationship with the England captain as "in tents".
As the cashflow problems of the NHS and ITV Digital vie for headline space, a thought occurs. Given the huge popularity of medical drama (ER, Casualty, Holby City, Animal Hospital), why not launch a new channel where viewers can watch live operations 24 hours a day? Lights! Camera! Traction! Laparoscopy could scoop the ratings in Through the Keyhole; Coronary care brings new meaning to the title Survivor; "real-life trauma from the BBC" could be extended to include Auntie's Tumours, though perhaps we should draw the line at Parkinson for the moment. As private surgeons queue up to compete in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, cosmetic surgery could feature large in Ready, Steady, Cock while, for the squeamish, there's always the alternative: Can't Look, Won't Look.
