Year in Jeremy

What a year! If modern politics is about reclaiming the ground from cosy consensus with new ideas, then we’re looking at an RPP election landslide. From winning over wary voters to bringing pop stars together in Africa in the name of eco-sensitive development, here’s my month-by-month highlights. Stock up on the brain juice.

January


Hit the ground running with Newshopper press coverage for "stronger terror laws, tax relief for second home owners and compulsory sport in schools”.

February


Bring to the West’s attention on one of the major effects of global warming – the crisis in the monkey community because we insist on travelling thousands of miles to catch one in a tree decaying under the weight of C02 emissions. “Many of them have developed homosexual disorders… so let’s ramp up the zoo building programme, increase ‘tree-city’ capacity and get the worst-off some counselling,” I cried. Later, I face down scurrilous allegations that I auctioned off monkeys for cash.



March


RIP to a great friend and human rights torchbearer, John Inman, who wanted to live in a world where each and every one of us, from vaudevillian comic to asylum seeker (subject to proper completion of the relevant paperwork), is able to say confidently, “I’m free!”

April

A spot of retail therapy does the RPP coffers no harm, as I launch the RPP tartan spring range. They go down like a storm in a sporran in doorstopping around SE London as we launch our I Can’t Get No Literacy campaign too. Canvassing in kilts, you'd better believe it!


May


The film crew that I let into my life holds a lavish premiere for the documentary in a minimalist central London location. Check the trailer. Malcolm, when’s the damn programme going out?

June


Real experience = real policies. Camp out in Victoria Park in London’s Hackney for a week to flag up the absolute necessity of efficient roofing over the head of all Britons.

July

Work with my H20 cronies Green Piss to illustrate the folly of water over-use by staging a mass flushathon. Thames Water didn’t know what hit ‘em! My director of communications Rupert Chaucer tells me this idea is too good to waste on a busy news week, and times the release for drought-happy late summer. I mentioned this to MIND’s Claude Whole, who said I should advertise his position with immediate effect.


Major network synthesis was imminent, as the RPP announced its Designing Urban Futures scheme. To Hear Hunt Freaker, DUFFF executive Coordination Strategy Chairman, speak is to become a regeneration evangelist. 
And at the end of a hectic month, I see for myself the real benefits of a paranodal approach to problem solving, by getting involved in the great work at the local NHS trust’s Tahiti Ward. Then I take a holiday on a Pacific atoll.

August


How do you get substantial pledges to deliver sustainable eco-villages in Kenya in little more than a week? By going in studs up on Coldplay’s Chris Martin! The protests that greeted me on my return to Heathrow were simply not valid. 
Sensing the music industry’s ability to get the message across, I soon roll out my Ideas Bank with hot indie combo Editors.

September 


Incorporating the Mind 2007 is launched amid no little media praise, to which my response was ‘See you in Chile’. My only concern now is leading the next generation by example.

October


Take the bulls by the horns by revealing how I get ahead in the office world. Cynics call it violent confrontation, I call it Managizing Change.

November


Inner-city Krakow finds a good deal of cheer as dartist Bobby George leads a torching of its main infrastructure. With this sponsored arson, I think we made our case for investment in Eastern bloc cities pretty transparent, don’t you?

December


I see how deals are struck on the environment at the UN conference in Bali and can only wail in an excess of emotion.

Phew! Next year, we will be rolling out more optimal proposals to create plans of action about taking this country forward in phases. The RPP bandwagon will become an unstoppable biodiesel-fuelled juggernaut. You can hitch a ride by joining up at party HQ immediately. Feel free to suggest your prime McClintock Event of 2007, but otherwise let's catch up in Sappington!

(Originally published 19 December 2007)