Monday

Another early start in Whitehall. What? You've not heard? Why, I am the Minister for Outer Space in the new Coalition Government! The position had been earmarked for poor Lembit, but on election night everyone learned what I have long suspected: the people of Mid Wales do not care for That Sort of Thing. So here I am poring over my red boxes and undoing Socialist mischief by the hour. Already I have dispensed with the requirement for visitors from other galaxies to have identity cards and this morning I cancelled an expedition of North London social workers to Alpha Centauri designed to educate the inhabitants out of colonialist attitudes. Next week I shall be off to Woomera, whence Raymond Baxter blasted off in Coronation year to become the first Englishman in space, and then I shall be talking to David Chidgey, once the fearless pilot of the Liberal Democrats' own spacecraft the Bird of Liberty, about getting our party into space again. The old crate has been in a barn on the Bonkers Hall Estate for some years, but I am sure it can be put back into service once we have found somewhere else for the chickens to roost.

Tuesday

The coalition agreement, I will freely admit, came as something of a surprise. One day I was supervising the digging of elephant traps to catch the unwarier Tory canvasser: the next I was fishing my Conservative neighbours' lakes on the grounds that we were all on the same side now so they could not possibly complain. And splendidly fishy lakes they proved in those strange, sunny days during which the fate of our nation hung in the balance. I did have a nasty turn when I heard we were talking to Labour as well (and was faced with the prospect of having to put the fish back), but with a well-placed telephone call or two I was able to ensure that those talks came to nothing.

Wednesday

One of the new Conservative ministerial colleagues puts his head around my door: the poor fellow is in tears! “Can't you do anything about this Laws of yours?” he sobs. “He's cut my departmental budget to ribbons”. I put a manly arm around his shoulders and pour him a snootful of Auld Johnson, because I know what the new Financial Secretary to the Treasury is like. Some years ago, I asked him to have a look at the finances of the Bonkers' Home for Well-Behaved Orphans and he produced a report urging me to sell the orphans and invest the money in start-up funds in the Far East. Needless to say, I did no such thing. (I had a word with a bigwig at the Bank of Rutland and he warned me off the Orient for the time being).

Thursday

Who will the next leader of the Labour Party be? The answer, it appears, is one of the Miliband brothers. As an old friend of their father, the Marxist historian Sir Ralph Millipede, I have known them since they were so high. I well remember them on the hearthrug in their pyjamas, putting together Airfix models of the dams that Comrade Stalin had built to divert the rivers of Central Asia and water the Uzbek cotton fields. I was always struck by how similar David and Edward were - indeed I am not convinced that even Lady Millipede could tell them apart. If I am honest, however, my favourite in those days was the third Miliband brother. He had a mop of golden curls and, though he had little to say for himself, was something of a virtuoso on the harp even at his young age. I often wonder what became of Harpo Miliband: the Labour Party could do worse than turn to him today.

Friday

What with the election campaign and the burdens of office, I have rather neglected the old demesne of late. So I put matters right by spending a day on Estate business having ditches cleared, hedges trimmed, orphans drilled and so forth. Meadowcroft, I fear, is not at his sunniest and is much given to complaining that the volcanic dust has “befangled his perennials”. I stand him a pint of Smithson & Greaves in the Bonkers' Arms at lunchtime, which does much to restore his spirits. After lunch, I write a stiff letter to the Icelandic Ambassador on Meadowcroft's part. I also assure him that I am well aware that this 'Eyjafjallajkull' volcano of theirs is really called Dave and that they are not justified in playing such a cruel trick upon our newsreaders just because they still feel sore about the Cod War.

Saturday

I am often surprised at our tabloid press. After an enjoyable day watching my own XI defeat the Scottish Nationalists, I repair to the Library to read tomorrows newspapers - I have them brought to the Hall by fast bicycle as soon as they are published in Fleet Street. The News of the World splashes (as I believe the word is) on the intelligence that the erstwhile Duchess of York taken money in return for promising to introduce a journalist to her former husband. But her willingness to do this has been an open secret for years! I have myself given her money more than once to ensure that the Duke of York does not attend a function I am organising. Interestingly, my great-grandfather once had the front of the Hall painted green when George IV was in the area in hope that he would fail to see the old pile against the surrounding fields and ride past.

Sunday

After every general election, it behoves us to remember those among our colleagues who fell in action: we say a prayer for them at St Asquith's this morning. In the ensuing silence - and before the enthusiastic rendering of 'The Last Post' by a member of the Rutland Army Cadet Force - I think of Richard Younger-Ross and Julia Goldsworthy, victims both of unfortunate misunderstandings over household furnishings, of Paul Rowen in Rochdale and of Sandra Gidley in Romsey. Some of our chaps, of course, stood down of their own volition. Notable amongst them was that scourge of the “two-tier service”, Phil Willis. Willis, you may recall, had been a headmaster before entering Parliament and, when asked what he most regretted in life, was wont to reply that it was using the cane in that earlier career. This always won applause from the audience, but it struck me as trying to have your cake and eat it.

Lord Bonkers, who was Liberal MP for Rutland South West 1906-10, opened his diary to Jonathan Calder.