Any Other Business | 3 October 2009

I was Shriti’s speechwriter once upon a time — but she won’t need me in Seoul

Several national newspapers lazily copied each other last week in describing me as ‘a former speechwriter to Shriti Vadera’ — the business minister who is leaving the government to become Gordon Brown’s emissary to the G20, and perhaps to prepare the way for his post-election role as director-general of a new economic world order of his own devising. As it happens, I am indeed her former speechwriter, but only in the rather limited sense that the late Bob Monkhouse is my former speechwriter: that is, I occasionally use one of Bob’s jokes, and my old friend Shriti once used one of mine. The difference is that Bob’s ancient gag always gets a laugh, but the long-forgotten one I inserted into Shriti’s speech (this was before she left the City to become Brown’s loyal confidante and enforcer) evoked nothing but painful silence, and to the best of my knowledge she never attempted to tell another one.