John Prescott is currently in charge of Britain, because Tony Blair is currently in the Caribbean. On Friday, he denied calling President Bush a cowboy, and saying that American foreign policy was "crap".

But for all his great powers, as Percy French might have said, in 2007 John Prescott is still going to be the subject of a television drama about his sex life.

How come the Brits get all the good telly? I realise that we get all their good telly as well, and for nothing, so I suppose we should be grateful. But really, when one considers the dramas that have exploded within Irish public life over the last 10 years, it seems downright shameful that they have all ended up playing to the gallery in a series of tribunals.

One doesn't get to say this about television drama very often but, in the case of political scandals, television drama would be cheaper thanf well, just about anything else we've tried so far. I wouldn't mind, but the bloody Brits make television drama out of stuff that we'd be ashamed to call a scandal.

They made a television drama about the alleged . . .

alleged, mind you . . . preelection pact between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The climax of the action took place at a table for two in a restaurant in Islington . . . no booze involved.

I do not mean to criticise The Deal, as this action-packed adventure was called . . . in fact, I loved it . . . but really, in this as in so many other areas of life, our little republic has been blessed by Nature with much richer natural resources. Come on, what's going on in the PDs would make Six Feet Under look both straightforward and brief.

On coalition negotiations alone, we could get a series of such tension and violence that it would make Pulp Fiction look like Bosco. The temptation to cast the late Mr Haughey as the Godfather . . . only less successful . . . is a strong one. But it is a mini-series, in Mr Haughey's case. Bertie is Tony Soprano, as we all know. And then there remains the perennial problem of Fine Gael. I feel that Fine Gael is more afternoon television than anything else. I feel that they are one of those mild Australian soaps, harmless and pleasant.

The Labour party I'm not so sure about. I think we have to go back in time with the Labour party, to something likeNorthern Exposure. Yo u know, with the moose walking down the street and all those sweaters. The Labour party is very like Northern Exposure, with a similar proportion of eccentrics, but without their whimsical charm.

The other scandal out of which the Brits made a television drama was David Blunkett's affair with Kimberley Quinn. It was called A Very Social Secretary.Mr Blunkett's lawyers tried to stop it. Mr Blunkett rang up the chief executive of Channel 4 to complain. But Channel 4 would not budge.

You have to hand it to the Brits. If a senior member of the Irish government rang one of our television executives with a similar complaint, the offending political drama would be pulled so fast that we'd be left looking at stills of scenic beauty for 90 minutes instead.

Prezza is going to be played by Warren Clarke, best known as Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel in the BBC's Dalziel and Pascoe. Yo u have to say that it's inspired casting.

The part of Tracey Temple, Mr Prescott's mistress who was a civil servant until very recently, has yet to be cast. A well-known senior soap actress is being approached to play Mrs Pauline Prescott. For Mrs Prescott, the television series must be an extension of her nightmare. How true is the axiom that comedy is tragedy that is happening to somebody else?

I'm afraid I can't wait.