The Diary of Ed Miliband, aged 55+1/4
Announcing our new columnist: we are delighted to be serialising Ed's private diary each Monday on Absurd Intelligence.
Monday.
Thank god we’ve seen Heathrow expansion drop off the agenda. It went as well as could be expected (and it buried the new subsidies to Drax) but I’ll be glad when we get the Carbon Capture and Storage units built to suck up their smoke. My private secretary told me they’d be at scale by 2033 and I joked with her: ‘What, half-past eight?’ She looked quite terrified, to be honest. I had to explain, it’s a new genre I’ve been dreaming up for quips on my Instagram. I’m calling it Hopeless Humour.
Tuesday.
Had a great idea! Briefed on the comet that might hit Earth in 2032. It only has a 1-2% chance of collision, but the boffins in the space networks have the Torino Scale where even that tiny % triggers a global coordinated response. Now, what if we had something similar for going past 2 degrees of warming (I mean, on more than the odd occasion)? We’re at around 90% for that. (A 9 on the Torino: ‘causing unprecedented regional devastation. Occurs once per 10,000-100,000 years.’ Sounds about right.)
Inspiration from an unlikely source, as I finally got a copy of that crank Jem Bendell’s book on civilisational collapse. Had to wrap it in the cover of Tony’s autobiography to read it in the Commons Library without 30p Lee snapping it for GBNays.
I took this from Bendell: don’t keep whanging on about 1.5 or 2 degrees, Ed! No-one gets it. Tell people what 1.5 feels like instead, which is a 12.5% increase in global average temperature, more over land. And 2 degrees is 17% hotter. No wonder everything’s melting!
It’s a shame we can’t use the Torino Scale for collapsing climate impacts: NASA says it only deals with Near Earth Objects (NEOs) not Actual Earth Objects. Anyway, some kind of scale for climate risk is needed. Call it the Bendell Scale?
Wednesday.
Oh, the onslaught of the media’s ritual aggression! Hauled over the coals on Good Morning Britain by Susanna Reid. This time on the campaigners’ victory on Rosebank, and whether or not we’re going to licence new oil and gas now it’s unlawful. Not for the first time, either. Must get my PS to screen calls from GMB better. Asked me how I could look the British public in the eye when we weren’t able to stick to our Paris Agreements. As if Shaley Susie gives a shit about Paris! I was disappointed with my performance. Thought I’d perfected the cheery dead-eyed stare of the eternal optimist. I suppose even a halfwit presenter could tell my heart wasn’t in it.
Carried a postcard from dad to the interview, one he sent me while at Corpus Christi. “Edward,” he wrote,
“remember, a socialist party would not only be concerned with office, but with the creation of the conditions under which office would be more than the management of affairs on capitalist lines.”
Must not leave it in the blazer pocket; would be awful if I was hit by a bus.
Weds PM.
Decided against calling it the Bendell Scale. Not the best acronym. Secret meeting with the Greens on the pros/cons of crossing the floor to be their new leader.
Thursday.
Listened to Bowie’s ‘We Could Be Heroes’ on repeat until my chief of staff said to turn it off, it was depressing the office.
In 2029 David Bowie ‘Heroes (just for one day)’ will be Labour's new election anthem.
Thursday PM.
Told Keir my idea for the Global Whole Earth Network Trigger system (GWENT). Said it sounded too Welsh. Angela said the word trigger is triggering, and she knows a thing or two about triggers. Looked up Gwent on Google maps. I see Keir’s point. Welsh Labour would take the credit, and we can’t have that. Back to the drawing board.
Friday.
Throwing around ideas with Geoff for defibrillating the podcast. First episode: how the Labour whips will be the first to die in the Musk-Farage coup. Not great audio though, all those gurgling noises. (And that’s just Frau Farage having a Grok-generated orgasm.)
Friday PM.
Watching JD Vance’s speech from Munich. He’s just said, “In Britain and across Europe free speech, I fear, is in retreat”. Vance reminds me of the Slag Brothers from Wacky Races. “Raga-radda, wheel gone. Get new one! Rah Dummyhead! You make square wheel!" I imagine the Oval Office sounds like this these days. I wish a journalist in Munich had asked Vance about if the book banning in the US is ‘free speech’, what his definition of ‘free speech’ might be, or why he asked Musk to remove from X the video of him calling Trump a fraud, and whether Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy will also be burnt, on grounds of his always coming second to that single white cat lady, Penelope Pitstop. JD, you Wacky Slag!
As well as Vance emulating the Slag Brothers, they were also inspiration for the later Captain Caveman, who was, in the end, too sophisticated a role model for the Ohio Republican.
Saturday.
Insulated the house.
Sunday.
Heard in a different WhatsApp chat that Count Claire Coutinho, she of POP the COP who once had her fangs into my job, is working for Big Oil. Could be gossip. But it turns my stomach that people are having a go at us for being sensible, having already forgotten what a lying bunch of bastards and psychopaths the last lot were. I know we’re getting some things wrong, but I’d hoped the public would remember the Johnson Years and the Truss Hours and give us a little leeway. I believe in us. I suppose that’s my naivety again. But what is one to do other than try to be less of a c^nt, in a system that doesn’t allow you to be anything but a c^nt?
Sunday PM.
Didn’t realise the chat with the Greens was an interview for the job. I asked for feedback: too Jewish.
