Diary – 12 July 2003

I am summoned to No. 10 for a one-on-one with the Prime Minister. These ‘landscape chats’, as his spin doctors call them, are, of course, strictly off the record. But I don’t think I am breaking a confidence in revealing that, as we sit on the terrace outside the Cabinet room, I witness a seriously tribal side to Mr Blair which has been obscured in previous encounters. Making small talk about football, I mention that my father played for Newcastle United in his youth. The effect of this revelation upon the First Lord of the Treasury – a lifelong Toon fan – is nothing short of electric. It is as if I have employed some esoteric Masonic handshake. ‘I had no idea!’ he exclaims. Well, to be fair, why should he? I mean, Dad doesn’t go on about his days in the black-and-white strip, and Mr Blair has the country to run.