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I found this shoe shortly after I arrived at my lodgings from the pub. I rented a room in Mrs Bourne's large house. She was an eccentric and rich old widower but looked after me. I needed a lot of looking after. Being unemployed I spent most of the time hidden away in my room drinking and writing stories. I had written hundreds of stories but publishers, if they bothered to reply at all, always rejected them. I considered myself a genius but nobody was clever enough to notice.

The kitchen was dark as I entered through the back door. In my oVeR ELaBoRaTe PrOsE pHaSe I would have written 'that it was as dark in there as the end of a three mile underground tunnel - with blackout curtains at the entrance - would seem, to a blindfolded bat'. I always described my writing phases with this TyPe StYlE style since I came in one night drunk, shut the back door on my little finger and broke it. This finger jutted out for a time and kept on touching the Caps Lock key. I liked to be constantly reminded of painful events. My psychiatrist told me that it was good therapy for me.

So kitchen was merely dark in my current phase; DiRtY rEaLiSm. I had had lots of phases. I had to; I was a great and prolific but as yet undiscovered writer. At that time I was fed up with describing everything. If you must know the kitchen was as dark as any typical room, in any suburban house, on any road with streetlamps blazing. I told you it didn't matter.

I tripped over something as I fumbled for the light switch. It was a shoe. I thought nothing of it because I was drunk again.

In my provisions cupboard sat a solitary bottle of wine. It had a screw top. I never bought bottles of wine sealed with corks. Then you needed a corkscrew. Why complicate life? I unscrewed the cap with my hand. It was simple; all I needed was one of my God given hands. Corks were like neckties; a completely useless item of paraphernalia.

After pouring the wine into a pint glass – why fill up small glass three and a half times - I sat down in the lounge and turned on the television. A Party Political Broadcast was showing. The Prime Minister was talking political strategy. I preferred to watch politicians on manoeuvres. The only time I could look at politicians with even the slightest interest was when they were in mouth to mouth combat. I suppose interest is the wrong choice of word; dismay would be more accurate. Only when they were in action could I relate to them. Even then it was only by wondering which of us were the furthest away from being normal. It was a close run thing although neither of us was within a million miles of normality. My curiosity with politicians mirrored that of a psychoanalyst's towards disturbed and psychotic people. They weren't particularly interesting but merely of interest. I was an expert in psychoanalyst – patient relationships having been in many. They sometimes seemed like the only relationships I had ever had. What dismayed me most was how the politician's particular form of psychosis came to be diagnosed as a virulent strain of leadership.

The television screen started to career around the room. I got up and lurched into the kitchen and threw up on the floor. I was not concerned. Being sick was just nature's way of telling you that you'd had enough to drink. I stooped down to clear up the mess and noticed a black object under the vomit. It was the shoe. In my HaCkNeyEd ClIcHe PhAsE I would have said 'I don't remember eating that'.

I picked up the shoe and gave it a shower under a running tap which would have been a faucet during my AmErIcAn PhAsE. The shoe had never been worn and had a makers label inside; EDWARD GREEN OF MAYFAIR, COBBLERS FOR OVER 100 YEARS. A £240 price label was still attached inside. Stuck on the sole was a yellow paper label with a capital L written in red felt pen. I guessed that the shoe belonged to Rupert Devere who lived next door. He was, apparently, something dynamic in The City where he made mountains of theoretical money for which he was rewarded with mountains of real money. It seemed like a fraudulent system to me. When I used to work I made mountains of real money for a company who then paid me paltry amounts of theoretical money.

Everything about the shoe pointed to Rupert DeVere. He was due to be married the following day and showing off price labels was one of his many shabby hobbies. His Porsche still had the showroom price stickers attached to the inside of the windscreen. He had bought the car over a year ago.

I swayed upstairs to my room, collapsed on the bed, passed out and drifted into a weird and vivid dream. None of this was remotely unusual.

I found myself in the lobby of the House of Commons. Prime Minister's Question Time was about to begin. I was the Prime Minister. Upon spotting the Leader of the Opposition I followed him as he was limping badly. He stopped and lifted one leg like a stork.

He saw me, took off his shoe and said, “I seem to have something stuck in my shoe. I think it has gone into my foot.”

“Allow me,” I said taking the shoe from him.

With the Leader of the Opposition's back turned I flicked the shoe to my Home Secretary with the skill of an All Black Scrum Half. He caught it one handed as if he was an All Black Stand Off. We could have made a great half back pairing at Eton if we had gone there.

I slipstreamed into a flow of suits and was carried seamlessly away into the Chamber. The Home Secretary gave me a return pass. I knew my way around and found my place by the dispatch box. This was the fourth time my dreams had taken place in the House of Commons that week.

As I stood at the dispatch box the Leader of the Opposition stared at me scathingly. The hubbub died down and, in accordance with protocol, I was asked to list my appointments for the day.

“I haven't got any appointments today,” I said.

The chamber erupted. There was laughter from my side and, as ever, manufactured indignation from the opposition benches.

Question time started. The Leader of the Opposition rose. He looked rather lopsided but bent down and fiddled with his feet behind the dispatch box. Eventually he stood up again, flustered but level this time. I imagined he was standing in his socks.

“It was very interesting to hear that the Prime Minister does not have any appointments today. With the pantomime he is running I would have thought he'd be fully booked until Christmas.”

There was lots of laughter and jeering. It was as if somebody had said something humorous.

The leader of the opposition waited for the laughter to die down. “I would have thought that the Right Honourable Gentleman would have many pressing appointments to attend. Let's take just one. Has the Prime Minister anything to say about the entire computer database for the Identity Card Scheme being found on a park bench in Hyde Park and, as a consequence, its subsequent publication on Facebook. Does he know that there are now three million members of the online Facebook group, 'I want to read the Identity Card Scheme Database?' How can the government be so careless, so reckless and so negligent?”

The house was in uproar over this revelation even though the story had headlined in the papers the day before. I looked down at the shoe nestling between my own. It was beautifully crafted and extremely robust. Yes...it was certainly robust. It had to be, I was a politician. Everything was robust. Inside the shoe there was a label that said EDWARD GREEN OF MAYFAIR, COBBLERS FOR OVER 100 YEARS. The second part read to me like the perfect epitaph for the House of Commons. I flicked the shoe over. On the bottom was a yellow sticker with a capital L written in red felt pen.

Then I remembered something. I stood up and began shouting. “I am not about...I am not about...I am not about...I am not about...I am not about...”

I kept on repeating the opening of my intended sentence. Politicians never waited patiently for noise to abate unless it was the sound of people laughing at their lame jokes. They always shouted over jeering, repeating endlessly the opening words of their intended reply.

The farmyard noises finally subsided after ten 'I am not abouts'.

“I am not about to take lectures from the Leader of the Opposition on losing things.” I was not going to answer the question either. This was hardly original but originality was a dubious quality in here, even more dangerous than for a writer. If you had your own mind you were sneeringly labelled a maverick.

The farmyard mooing and bleating recommenced. I looked around me. The politicians looked like broadsheets but were acting like tabloids.

“Oh no...oh no...oh no...oh no...look at this...look at this...look at this...look at this...look at this... look at this.” I continued repeating myself until the noise subsided once more. I felt really stupid doing that even though it was just a dream. It was the first time I had felt embarrassed in a dream. I held up the shoe to the house. “Look at this. I have in my hand a piece of footwear. Oh...it's the Leader of the Opposition's shoe. He seems to have lost it along with the plot and everything else. He must have left it on a park bench. How careless, how reckless, how uncommonly negligent. How can the Right Honourable Gentleman accuse our party of negligence when he can't even organise his own wardrobe?

The jeers welled up again; goats and chickens joined the sheep and cows this time.

“And what is this...and what is this...and what is this...and what is this...and what is this...”

The animals quietened down.

“And what is this underneath. A sticker...Oh...it's got a capital L written on it. Bless. He's labelled his shoe. Is the L for learner?”

The hubbub rose again. Pigs and Alpacas joined in this time.

Or does it...or does it...or does it...or does it...or does it...or does it remind him which is left and which is right. He doesn't know his left from his right. No wonder he pretends to sit in the middle.”

“Punch and Judy politics,” a loud voice jeered.

“Or did he take his left shoe off to stop himself following his instincts and lurching to the right. We all know that's the way he wants to go don't we? Towards more Health Service Cuts, towards more tax breaks for the rich, towards less public services, towards spending cuts, towards no minimum wage, towards...”

“Punch and Judy politics,” repeated the loud voice.

“I'll give you Punch and Judy politics. The Leader of the Opposition knows all about Punch and Judy. He is made of wood and dances to the strings of expediency.”

“Order, order, order,” said the Speaker looking completely bored with it all.

I woke up suddenly. The doorbell was ringing. It couldn't possibly be for Mrs Bourne so I rushed down the stairs. Rupert DeVere was standing in the porch. He wore a wedding suit with slippers.

“You haven't found a shoe have you? I think Adam Gilchrist took it from the patio. Can you ask Mrs Bourne to mend her fence?”

Adam Gilchrist was Mrs Bourne's Jack Russell. She loved cricket. It was the sole reason she chose a Jack Russell.

I went to the kitchen and took the shoe out of the sink. After handing it to him he said, “It's wet.”

“The dog dribbles,” I said. “Did you know that..,” I stopped.

I was going to tell him that the leader of his beloved Conservative Party wore the same make and style of shoe as him, made by Edward Green of Mayfair. But I realised that I didn't know that; I was mixing reality and fantasy like I mixed my drinks. It was just something I saw in a dream, I think; or was it the other way round.

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